UII Inaugurates Anti-Sexual Violence Taskforce

Yogyakarta—Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) officially inaugurated its 2023-2025 Taskforce for Sexual Violence Prevention and Handling (PPKS) as its members took their oath at the university’s Mohammad Hatta Building on Friday, 31 March 2023.

UII Rector Prof. Fathul Wahid, S.T., M.Sc., Ph.D. led the inauguration ceremony of the seven taskforce members, which consisted of two lecturers, two teaching staffs and three students.

Prof. Fathul Wahid reiterated in his speech that UII was committed to be the pioneer in the prevention and handling of sexual violence.

“UII’s fight against sexual violence didn’t start today. We have put much attention to this issue long before,” the rector said. “UII has issued multiple regulations on this matter, and we made a firm stance on this by 2020. We have the University Regulation No. 1 that regulates the prevention and handling of immoral acts and sexual violence.”

According to Prof. Fathul Wahid, UII has narrowed the chance for sexual violence behavior on campus. “We also process the cases we find at the faculty and university levels. This shows that UII agrees that there is no room for sexual violence on campus,” the rector said.

“We hope that the presence of the PPKS Taskforce will strengthen the efforts we have been making for a long time,” Prof. Fathul said.

He hoped that the PPKS Taskforce would improve the community’s collective awareness to prevent and handle sexual violence cases.

“Acts that shouldn’t be allowed may be considered fine because they have been going on for a long time. So, we need to improve the people’s sensitivity with education and campaigns so that the prevention can be carried out well by increasing the people’s literacy. This is important,” Prof. Fathul emphasized.

“We must find appropriate ways so that the message is conveyed well without making noises and giving the impression of excessive actions,” the rector explained.

Prof. Fathul Wahid went on to say that UII has the will to handle all cases related to the campus’ community. “If the perpetrator is related to UII, then whenever we receive reports along with the evidence, we will process the case,” he stressed.

Although this was UII’s first PPKS Taskforce, Prof. Fathul Wahid emphasized that the university has been taking various actions to handle the issue of sexual violence. “This is our first taskforce, but don’t get it wrong. It doesn’t mean that this is our first step to handle sexual violence,” he said.

“For long, UII has put attention on this matter. We put them in regulations for students, lecturers’ code of conduct as well as other UII regulations on immoral acts and gender equality. We have been doing this for a long time,” Prof. Fathul Wahid said. (VIP Magazine Vol 10)