What is the age of consent in Indonesia? 15 or 18?

Question

I found this question on a forum https://www.livinginindonesiaforum.org/forum/general/laws-visas-money-matters-and-documents/52502-age-of-consent

Wikipedia says 15. However,

Article 82 child protection law says the following:

Every one who deliberately commits violence, or threat of violence, forces, does tricks, tells a series of lies, or persuades a child to do, or let obscene acts be done, is subject to penalty of 15 (fifteen) years at most and 3 (three) years at least and fine of Rp. 300.000.000 (three hundreds millions) at most and Rp. 60.000.000 at least.

https://www2.congreso.gob.pe/sicr/cendocbib/con4_uibd.nsf/E67F49F7CC441622052580330075862B/$FILE/ANNEX-3-Laws-of-child_protection.pdf

I found the law a bit weird.

It prohibits some nonconsensual stuffs like "deliberately commits violence, or threat of violence, forces, does tricks, tells a series of lies", however, later it adds a phrase 'persuade'. Persuading someone is not necessarily nonconsensual. All the words describe nonconsensual activity except 'persuade'.

Also, one interpretation of this article is that all sex with girls under 18 is illegal. However, if that's the case, why not just make it simple and

don't have sex with girls under 18

?

If all obscene acts with a girl under 18 are illegal, why doesn't the law simply say don't do obscene acts with a girl under 18?

If some obscene acts are legal, why does it say "coerce, trick, bla bla bla, persuade" girls to have sex with you if she is under 18?

Why does the law prohibit persuading girls to do obscene acts but does not prohibit the actual doing of the obscene act itself? Kind of weird.

Of course the law says do obscene acts instead of having sex. I am not even sure what obscene acts include.

What am I missing here?

Actually, due to this, is age of consent in Indonesia 18 or 15?

Any actual court cases will be great.

In the forum I sent someone actually asked this:

"The exploitation" and "persuasion" angle is not very clear to me. So sex with a girl above 15 is legal unless you "exploit" or "persuade" her to do so. Can anyone shows actual court cases?

It seems that actual court cases for this sort of thing is very few.

So if the law is to be read literally, it looks like having sex with a girl above 15 is legal unless you "exploit" or "persuade". Which is absurd.

Answer 1

Content Warning: this post mentions rape / non-consensual sex and discusses (in some non-explicit detail) coercion of minors.

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As of Tuesday, March 1st, 2016, according to the Indonesian Penal Code (translated version; I cannot read Indonesian), Indonesia's age of consent is 16 years old (18 for homosexual acts). Indonesia also does not have close-in-age exemptions (for example, in Canada, the age of consent is 16 years old, but a 14-year-old can consent to a partner less than 5 years older, and a 12-year-old can consent within 2 years).

I cannot verify this source but according to Wikipedia, which cites this PDF, the age of consent could be raised to 18 years under the Child Protection Act arguing that sexual acts can cause bodily or mental harm and "child" is defined as anyone under 18 years of age. As an example, according to Wikipedia, a court case in 2009 (Sydney Morning Herald) saw this used to convict an Australian man.

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There is nothing weird about this law. I left this as a comment, but let me elaborate in an answer. Your misconception is that persuasion is an innocent and ethical thing. The harsh reality is that children are, on average, more ignorant than adults and lack judgement, foresight, and rationality at times, and there are disgusting individuals that will exploit this fact to get children to do things they otherwise wouldn't such as sex, or drugs. Additionally, age comes with a power imbalance - think a teacher using their power over a student to convince or coerce them into having sex with them. That is not strictly violence, nor telling lies, or "forcing" in the strict sense, nor trickery, but a reasonable individual would still consider that to be not real consent.

The fact is that children can only consent if it is entirely of their own accord and judgement and there is no extrinsic pressure forcing or persuading them to. In fact, I argue that adults are subject to this too and persuading or coercing an adult into having sex is also disgusting (but doing this to children is far more abhorrent). But since children are considered by law to lack the judgement to protect themselves against coercion and realize they should reject and get away from their persuader, the law instead protects them.

Persuading someone is not necessarily non-consensual.

It holds a high chance of being non-consensual, and consent is only considered real when it is a) not coerced, and b) the subject is legally capable; that is, not intoxicated, not a minor (by whatever the age of cosnent is), etc.

If all obscene acts with a girl under 18 are illegal, why doesn't the law simply say don't do obscene acts with a girl under 18?

Because sex with people between 16 and 18 is legal (in Indonesia) under the right conditions. Although I must say, since you word it as "obscene acts", then of course they're illegal. Obscene acts are, by definition, morally reprehensible and/or legally incriminating, so illegal things are illegal, is basically what you're saying. Just say "having sex" if you mean "having sex".

Why does the law prohibit persuading girls to do obscene acts but does not prohibit the actual doing of the obscene act itself? Kind of weird.

This makes no sense at all, and hopefully after reading my answer you understand why this makes absolutely no sense.

How in the earth anyone can have sex with someone without persuading? He walks the street and accidentally plug his penis in?

... Rape? There are many ways to have sex with someone without persuading them that I don't think I have to list. Your main mistake is still conflating persuaded / coerced consent as real consent.

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In summary, persuasion is not some innocent matter of convincing someone in a friendly manner to have sex. It includes coercion, abusing one's power, exploiting a child's ignorance and limited judgement or foresight, and other reprehensible factors. Consent cannot be given if the individual is too young, impaired, unable to legally give consent, or coerced into it.

Answer 2

The site ageofconsent.net in the other answer is not a reliable source. It is completely wrong to say that there is an age of consent of 16.

Indonesia has a criminal code, which is in Dutch, not Indonesian. A new Indonesian-language code has been passed, and will come into force in 2026.

The provisions on the age of consent in the current criminal code are:

Artikel 287.

(1) Hij, die buiten echt vleeschelijke gemeenschap heeft met eene vrouw, van wie hij weet of redelijkerwijs moet vermoeden dat zij den leeftijd van vijftien jaren nog niet heeft bereikt of dat zij, indien van haar leeftijd niet blijkt, nog niet huwbaar is, wordt gestraft met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste negen jaren.

(2) Vervolging heeft niet plaats dan op klachte, tenzij de vrouw den leeftijd van twaalf jaren nog niet heeft bereikt of een der gevallen van artikel 291 aanwezig is.

That is, anyone who has sex with a person other than their wife, under 15 years of age, can be sentenced up to 9 years in prison, but this requires a complaint from the victim, unless they are under 12 years of age.

Separately, article 288 provides that a man married to a child can be punished if she is not yet sexually mature and suffers injuries as a result.

Article 290 provides:

Met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste zeven jaren wordt gestraft: hij, die ontuchtige handelingen pleegt met iemand, van wien hij weet of redelijkerwijs moet vermoeden dat hij den leeftijd van vijftien jaren nog niet heeft bereikt of, indien van dien leeftijd niet blijkt, nog niet huwbaar is;

That is if someone commits a lewd act (ontuchtige handelingen) with a child apparently under the age of 15, that is a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Artikel 292.

De meerderjarige, die met een minderjarige van hetzelfde geslacht, wiens minderjarigheid hij kent of redelijkerwijs moet vermoeden, ontucht pleegt, wordt gestraft met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste vijf jaren

That is where an adult commits an ontucht (immoral act) with a minor of the same sex, they can be sentenced to five years in prison.

Although the definition of minor varies substantially across the colonial codes, being 15 (the age of marriage for women in the civil code), 16, 18 (the age of marriage for men in the civil code) or 21 (article 330 of the civil code). It is now clear that the definition of child, at least in terms of protection from immoral acts, is 18 in Indonesian law, as defined the law of Protection of Children (23/2002).

There is also no question whatsoever that homosexuality is overwhelmingly regarded as immoral within Indonesia.

There are numerous cases where in the absence of a specific age in this article, cases involving participants age 16 have been found guilty. In other cases it has been argued that the law is ambiguous and unconstitutional, but in general it is certain that a case of homosexual activity with someone aged under 18 is likely to be deemed criminal. It may be arguable for those aged 18-21.

There appears to be some conflict between the punishment of 7 years for a lewd act in article 290, and 5 years for a lewd act with someone of the same sex in 292.

Article 82 of the Law on Protection of Children 2002 https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/Home/Details/44473/uu-no-23-tahun-2002 which was modified to split into articles 76E and 82 (to provide a 1/3 sentence uplift in case of involvement by a parent, teacher, guardian, etc.) by law 35 of 2014 provides:

Setiap orang yang dengan sengaja melakukan kekerasan atau ancaman kekerasan, memaksa, melakukan tipu muslihat, serangkaian kebohongan, atau membujuk anak untuk melakukan atau membiarkan dilakukan perbuatan cabul,

Anyone who deliberately uses violence, threat of violence, forces, crafty tricks (listige kunstrepen), a tissue of lies (samenweefsel van verdichtsels), or seduces (verleidt) a child to perform or allow to perform an obscene act, is punished by at least 3, and not more than 15 years in prison.

The new criminal code, at Article 415 provides, that anyone who commits an indecent act (perbuatan cabul) with someone who they know or should suspect to be a child:

Pasal 415 Dipidana dengan pidana penjara paling lama 9 (sembilan) tahun, Setiap Orang yang:

a. melakukan perbuatan cabul dengan seseorang yang diketahui orang tersebut pingsan atau tidak berdaya; atau

b. melakukan perbuatan cabul dengan seseorang yang diketahui atau patut diduga Anak.

Further, the same criminal code clearly defines as rape, sex with anyone under the age of 18.

Pasal 473

(1) Setiap Orang yang dengan Kekerasan atau Ancaman Kekerasan memaksa seseorang bersetubuh dengannya, dipidana karena melakukan perkosaan, dengan pidana penjara paling lama 12 (dua belas) tahun.

(2) Termasuk Tindak Pidana perkosaan dan dipidana sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) meliputi perbuatan:

b. persetubuhan dengan Anak;

(3) Dianggap juga melakukan Tindak Pidana perkosaan, jika dalam keadaan sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) dan ayat (2) dengan cara:

a. memasukkan alat kelamin ke dalam anus atau mulut orang lain;

b. memasukkan alat kelamin orang lain ke dalam anus atau mulutnya sendiri; atau

c. memasukkan bagian tubuhnya yang bukan alat kelamin atau suatu benda ke dalam alat kelamin atau anus orang lain.

(4) Dalam hal Tindak Pidana sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1), ayal (21 huruf c, ayat (2) huruf d, dan ayat (3) dilakukan terhadap Anak, dipidana dengan pidana penjara paling singkat 3 (tiga) tahun dan paling lama 15 (lima belas) tahun dan pidana denda paling sedikit kategori IV dan paling banyak kategori VII.

'persetebuhan dengan anak' means 'sexual intercourse with a child', where Article 150 defines a child as someone under the age of 18.

The definition of rape, including sex with a child, includes any penetration of the anus or genitals by any object/fingers/penis, as well as inserting genitals into the mouth, anus, or genitals.

Therefore in summary:

pre-2026:

• sexual intercourse with a girl under 15 is a crime under the criminal code
• a lewd act with a person under 15 is a crime under the criminal code
• a lewd act with a minor of the same sex, where 'minor' is not clearly defined, but is likely to be interpreted as 18, is a crime under the criminal code
• seducing a child, being someone under 18, to commit a lewd act, is a crime under the Protection of Children Act

post-2026

• oral sex, vaginal penetration, or anal penetration, of any person under 18 is classed as rape
• a lewd act not falling into the above definition of rape, with a person under 18, is a crime. This repeals Article 82 of the Child Protection Act which required 'seduction', or 'force', etc. This is no longer required, and there is a very clear age of consent for all sexual activity of 18.

It can be seen:

• the gay and heterosexual age of consent will firmly be 18, from 2026.
• the current heterosexual age of consent is not less than 15, but there is latitude for 15-17 to deem the party 'seduced' (seems more likely e.g., if there is age difference)
• the current homosexual age of consent is not clearly defined but can reasonably be deemed to be 18.

Please note that I use the term 'lewd act' or 'obscene act' to refer to any sexual act. This is correct in terms of law. All forms of sexual contact are classed as 'lewd' or 'obscene' acts, in that the clear understanding is that they are immoral acts, except between a husband and wife.