Indonesian ban on sex outside marriage ‘problematic’ for Bali tourists | Hacker News Reader

Indonesian ban on sex outside marriage ‘problematic’ for Bali tourists

smh.com.au

Looks like Indonesia has grown tired of its economic prosperity and is looking to become the next Iran.

You're right. They should double down for the sake of profits and lower the age of consent.

Criticize the president, go to jail. Meet someone and fall in love and have sex go to jail. Speak against the "ideology" go to jail. Did you even read the article?

I really enjoy visiting Indonesia and have many friends there that talk about how they can't visit some places because they'll be attacked and killed. The government focusing on codifying religious values in to criminal statues has never ended well for any people's in the history of the world.

The government should focus on freedoms of choice for it's people and allow them to chose the moral codes they follow.

They won't hassle tourists who have sex with other tourists. It's aimed at tourists having sex with locals, as well as at their own citizens.

The long history of government oppression does not bear this out. It actually shows the opposite will happen. They'll ignore it against their own people and specifically target foreigners because those enacting these kind of laws don't support different ideologies and view points.

Considering one of Indonesia's fundamental goals when Indonesia was founded was to bond together hundreds of different cultures, ideologies and beliefs they're really focusing on one at this point. Those enacting and enforcing (because this was enforced in many places prior to the law) these things don't want differences in ideologies, they want one. Tourist aren't something they want giving ideas of freedom to their peoples.

I certainly don't disagree the government of Indonesia has a long and bloody history of represssion, notably aided and abetted by Australia, the US and the UK during the anti communist backlash against Sukharno. More recently it's been pretty single minded about promoting its vision of an islamic community.

My point is that Bali is majority Hindu (80% +) and substantially different to the wider Indonesian Archipelago, and I very much doubt the hoteliers of Bali are remotely interested in doing random UV light spot checks on the bedrooms.

80% of Bali's income is tourism. 25% of it comes from Australians. I might agree with you about the repressive nature of Indonesian government, but you seem to be ignoring the venality: Suharto and his family extracted 30 or more billions in rent from the people. They don't intend killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

It's complaint based: the aggrieved partner or parent has to dob them in.

My experience is that it's not the Balinese that come to tourist areas to find rich tourist to give them a better life. The girls that come are from Java to both escape their oppressive parents while earning money to send home. Those parents don't care about the tourists.

From the article:

“The legislation on sex outside marriage and cohabitation is complaint-based, with only a husband or wife of a married person or the parents or children of an unmarried person able to report a matter to police. That means de facto foreign couples effectively can’t be denounced to authorities.”

If the law were to limit complainants to permanent residents and citizens, not overseas family members, it would not be a problem for tourists.

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