Sex outside of marriage will be banned in Indonesia. What could that mean for tourists?

Indonesia passed a sweeping new criminal code with multiple controversial provisions that will apply to locals and visitors from other countries. Here’s what tourists need to know.

Lawmakers in Indonesia — the world’s third-largest democracy and largest Muslim-majority nation — approved a new criminal code Tuesday, Dec. 6, with support from all political parties, Euronews reported.

Most controversially, the new laws banned sex outside of marriage, prohibited cohabitation before marriage and criminalized insulting a sitting president, among other measures, The Jakarta Post reported.

What do these new laws mean for visitors and tourists? Here’s what we know so far.

What do Indonesia’s new laws say about sex?

The new laws criminalize extramarital sex with a potential punishment of up to one year in prison or a fine, Al Jazeera reported. However, only a limited group of people, such as parents or children of those involved, can report individuals.

Cohabitation before marriage is punishable by up to six months in prison under the new criminal code, The Guardian reported. Similarly, charges can only be based on reports from close relatives.

Prior to the new criminal code, adultery was already banned in Indonesia, Euronews reported.

Indonesian lawmaker Taufik Basari of the NasDem party provided an example to The Guardian of how the laws may work. If a tourist in Bali had “consensual sex with an Indonesian national” and that Indonesian’s parents or children reported it to the police, “that tourist could be arrested,” the outlet reported.

The criminal code will not be enforced immediately, Euronews reported. The new laws will take effect in three years after specific implementation regulations have been drafted.

The chairman of the Association of the Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies in Bali, Putu Winastra, voiced his unanswered questions to CNN, saying “Should we ask (overseas unmarried couples) if they are married or not? Do tourist couples have to prove that they are married?” Implementation regulations are needed to fully understand how the new laws will be policed.

What are Indonesian lawmakers saying about the new criminal code?

Advocates of the new criminal code argue it is a much-needed update to the country’s colonial era laws, CNN reported. Bambang Wuryanto, the Indonesian lawmaker who led the effort to revise the criminal code, said “the old code belongs to Dutch heritage … and is no longer relevant,” the outlet reported.

The deputy chief of Indonesia’s tourism industry board, Maulana Yusran, said the new code is “totally counterproductive” to the country’s efforts to boost tourism after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and attract “digital nomads” who work remotely abroad, The Guardian reported. “We deeply regret the government have closed their eyes,” he said.

When the first draft of the new criminal code was unveiled in September 2019, it sparked nationwide student-led protests demanding the measures be softened, Al Jazeera reported. Three years later, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly insisted the government “tried our best to accommodate the important issues and different opinions that were debated,” according to The Jakarta Post.

Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono told CNN that the new laws are “a setback for already declining religious freedom in Indonesia. … The danger of oppressive laws is not that they’ll be broadly applied, it’s that they provide avenue for selective enforcement,” he said.

As Indonesia does not acknowledge same-sex marriage, there are fears that LGBTQ communities will be severely affected by the new criminal code, The Guardian reported.

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