Research shows how Indonesia’s drug control victimizes women and puts their health at risk

Por Claudia Stoicescu, The Conversation

On a balmy day in 2009, Adinda Amalia (not a real name) and her boyfriend were arrested after they were caught injecting heroin in an informal shooting gallery – a derelict property in a South Jakarta slum. The arrests followed a police raid on the area.

The couple were brought to the local police station. While her boyfriend was beaten and tortured in a separate cell, Adinda was blindfolded, drugged and gang-raped by police officers over four days.

The police demanded Rp95 million (US$6,500) to end her ordeal and drop all charges – an unfathomable amount for someone earning below the poverty line in Indonesia.

My latest research shows that experiences similar to Adinda’s rape, physical abuse and extortion at the hands of police officers are rampant in Indonesia.

Worse still, drug law enforcement in Indonesia like crackdowns, arrests for drug use, incarceration, and extrajudicial abuses were linked with negative health outcomes for women and increased their risk of suffering a drug overdose.