Adultery Made Illegal for 275 Million People

The practices of sex before marriage, sex outside of the marriage, and living together without being married have all been criminalized as part of a huge legal shake-up set to affect millions.

Lawmakers in Indonesia's parliament approved the legislation on Tuesday, in a move that will change the existing criminal code of the country, home to some 275 million people.

Indonesia is the most-populous country to make adultery illegal, although other states around the world have also made extramarital sex a crime.

Countries governed by Islamic law, such as Saudi Arabia and Somalia, also prohibit affairs, and adultery is still illegal in 21 American states, including New York—although the law is not enforced in practice.

Critics say the sweeping changes in Indonesia will curtail individual freedoms, hit human rights, usher in religious fundamentalism, and argue that the government has no business meddling in people's bedrooms anyway.

However, supporters say the country is simply throwing off "the colonial criminal code we inherited" and is set to enjoy more moral behaviour among its inhabitants.

The new criminal code, which criminalizes premarital and extramarital sex, and cohabitation of unmarried couples, has proved controversial, but received a majority of the votes from lawmakers during the plenary session this week.

Deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad banged the gavel to signal the text was approved and shouted "legal" as the historic move was passed, according to U.K. newspaper The Guardian.

The changes were given the go-ahead, despite warnings from business groups that the new criminal code could harm Indonesia's image, the tourist industry and business investment in the county.

Gay marriage is already outlawed in Indonesia, but there are fears that the new rules policing heterosexual relationships may end up having a knock-on effect on the LGBTQ community as well, with less tolerance shown by authorities.

However, Yasonna Laoly, minister of law and human rights, told the parliament: "We have tried our best to accommodate the important issues and different opinions which were debated. However, it is time for us to make a historical decision on the penal code amendment and to leave the colonial criminal code we inherited behind."

A spokesperson from the law and human rights ministry, Albert Aries, defended the amendments and said the law was an important step towards protecting the institute of marriage. Accusations of premarital or extramarital sex could be reported only by parents, a spouse, or children of the people involved, Aries added, which limited the scope of the amendment.

Human-rights groups have slammed the legislation as "morality policing," according to the French press agency AFP, and described it as a calculated crackdown on civil liberties.

Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid told AFP: "We are going backward... repressive laws should have been abolished, but the bill shows that the arguments of scholars abroad are true; that our democracy is indisputably in decline."

Abdul Ghofar, a campaigner who works for Indonesia's environmental group WALHI, said the public felt "grief" over the impending laws.

Around 100 people protested against the bill on Monday in the capital Jakarta, and some unfurled a yellow banner outside the parliament that read "reject the passing of the criminal code revision." Some of the demonstrators dropped flower petals on the banner, symbolising the gesture performed at funerals for a lost loved one.

Further protests against the new laws are due to take place on Tuesday.

In November 2019, a local councilor who helped draft strict adultery laws in the Indonesian province of Aceh got a taste of his own medicine when he was whipped in public after he was convicted of having an affair with a married woman. Mukhlis bin Muhammad, 46, had helped oversee implementation of strict Islamic sharia law in the conservative region of the world's most populous Muslim country.

His fate could befall more people as the country's laws governing sexual relationships are tightened. Adultery had been illegal already, but the new law has added additional new laws governing sexual relationships.

Indonesia's changes to its criminal code seems to buck a trend that has seen a general move away from banning affairs across the continent. In 2015, South Korea decriminalized adultery, and India followed suit in 2018.

However, the American states that still view adultery as a crime do not seem likely to change their laws anytime soon. Speaking in 2018, Deborah Rhode, a professor of law at Stanford University, California, said: "The criminal statutes remain in force for largely symbolic reasons, and there isn't enough enforcement risk for anyone to incur the political costs of repealing them."