Indonesia on Wednesday passed a decree that allows convicted child sex offenders to be punished with the death penalty or chemical castration. The new rules also require convicts on parole to wear electronic monitoring devices.
President Joko Widodo’s declaration comes a month after a 14-year-old girl was gangraped and killed in Sumatra. Seven teenage boys were convicted for the crime. The incident had sparked nationwide debate on the appropriate punishment for paedophiles and had also been compared to the 2012 Delhi gangrape.
Widodo (pictured above) said, “This regulation is intended to overcome the crisis caused by sexual violence against children,” according to The Guardian. The new decree brings the rules into effect immediately, but the country’s Parliament holds the power to dismiss it.
Very few countries in the world have legalised chemical castration as a punishment for sex offenders. These include Poland, South Korea, Australia, Russia and some states in the United States. Chemical castration reduces a person’s libido and is considered a controversial way of dealing with sex crimes.
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