Indonesia bans adultery and live-in relationships under new rules

Indonesia's new criminal code brings in a variety of new rules, including forbidding sex outside of marriage. According to the amended law, having intercourse outside of marriage carries a one-year prison sentence and cohabiting by six-month sentence, although accusations of adultery must be backed by police reports filed by a spouse, parents, or children. Foreigners residing in Indonesia or travelling to tourist destinations like Bali are subject to the same laws as Indonesian citizens. The law states that unmarried couples who are caught having intercourse might face a sentence of one year in jail.

The law also forbids unmarried couples from living together. It is an offence under the law and can result in a prison sentence of up to six months. Adultery will be a crime punishable by imprisonment as well.

Ajeng, a 28-year-old Muslim woman from Depok, West Java, stated that she was now in danger because she had been cohabitating with her partner for the past five years. "If one of the family members decides to call the police, we might both be arrested under the new law," she told the BBC. "I don’t think living together or having sex outside of marriage is illegal. In my religion, it is viewed as a sin. But I don’t think a particular faith should be the basis for the penal code," she added. It's anticipated that the new laws would face legal challenges.

Adultery used to be a punishable offence in India, and Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code contained provisions for it. Section 497 described adultery as "whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with a fine, or with both. In such a case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor."

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