How female executioners live in Indonesia (8 photos)

The executioner is a big name, women here are not allowed to kill anyone, but they do the work of flogging. Because flogging someone for adultery is a favorite thing in the deeply religious state of Aceh, and only women can touch women.





This is how the profession appeared - female floggers, or female executioners.

Public flogging is common here

Aceh is the most conservative state in Indonesia, and this makes it very different from any other place. It is considered semi-autonomous, a status Jakarta gave it in 2003 after much unrest among the people. And since then, the primacy of Sharia has been established here.



It's like footage from a dystopia, how everything is centered on symbols and in dark roots

There are a lot of slightly crazy rules regarding men and women. From 1999 to 2012, local Sharia law 442 was adopted here. For example, you cannot go on a date alone in the park, if you are caught having a nice conversation by the morality police - it will not seem too much. If they prove that you had an affair with your boyfriend, it will be considered a violation of morals and you will be whipped.

Spanking is a favorite form of local entertainment, which unfortunately shows the general level of development of the population. It is widely covered in the media, and at every public execution there is always a large crowd of onlookers. Especially if a woman is being punished.



A woman is taken to the place of punishment by caning.

How can a woman work as an executioner?

All female executioners wear a thick jilbab (one of the types of body coverings among Muslims, practically the densest, hiding almost everything) and cover their faces from the crowd.

The crowd should not see the look on the face of a woman who hits a woman. Usually they beat with special canes, this is an analogue of the medieval “beating with sticks”.



Let's congratulate each other that we have other problems

An entire full-time platoon of female executioners appeared in Indonesia relatively recently, in 2020. As the authorities explained, because there is an increase in crime among women, and it is necessary to somehow keep them in check.



A guy and a girl were caught on a date on a bench, it will be bad for them

“The purpose of spanking is not to torture a person, but to make him feel guilty. Therefore, if the criminal is a woman, then the executioner must also be a woman,” said Muhammad Rizal, head of the Aceh Sharia Police.

It's easy to stay incognito in a burqa

The main rule of the local police is that no one should know the identities of female whippers. Otherwise, the relatives of the punished criminals may attack them with revenge. Only a select few in the police department know them by name.

With the advent of such units, women actually began to be flogged more often and more willingly, and this had an effect. Everyone is subdued and afraid of the authorities.



Here they are, the ninja turtles from right to left - Raphael, Leonardo...

The Banda Aceh Sharia police station said it had no data on the number of floggings it had carried out in recent years. But one human rights report cited 428 floggings in 2013, followed by 515 in 2014 and 548 in 2015 across Aceh.

In 2019, Aceh police released a budget report showing that each flogging costs the provincial government nearly $1,000 (IDR 15 million), including catering, as well as assistance for security personnel, medical workers and witnesses.



Women sometimes work in the police, but you'll never know if she's an executioner or not.

The number of moral crimes in 2021 has dropped sharply compared to 2018, according to official data provided by the Shariah police. For example, khalwat, or when an unmarried man and woman are in a secluded place together, was recorded 90 times in 2018. In 2021, this number has dropped to 8!

Sharia police associate this with flogging. Activists disagree with this.



Woman screams in pain while being caned

But it seems to me, why guess and discuss morality here? People will stop being human and want ordinary romance and intimacy only under the threat of a stick.

The most frightening thing is that these are not ancient norms, but the state has turned into such a medieval game in just twenty years.