by ADI RENALDI
LGBTQI communities, religious minorities, and refugees are systematically excluded from the digital ID system used in Covid-19 vaccination.
The Putat Jaya cemetery in Surabaya is a neglected place. Wild grass grows uncontrollably, and, after it rains, the reek of decay rises over the graves. When Febby Damayanti went there in November 2019 for her friend Hani’s funeral, there were no flowers, no family members, and no cleric to lead the prayers. Only six people attended.
Hani was a 33-year-old trans woman who worked in the sex industry in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. She died due to complications from HIV/AIDS, for which she had refused to take antiretroviral therapy. “She thought she was healthy,” said Damayanti, a 37-year-old trans woman who owns a beauty salon and volunteers with Perwakos, one of Indonesia’s oldest LGBTQI advocate groups. “She didn’t know that she needed the drugs to suppress the virus. Things got worse, and her family refused to bury her.”
Like many in the trans community, Hani had been expelled from her family in her youth and never registered for Indonesia’s official identity card, meaning that she was essentially invisible to social services.
Locals call Putat Jaya “the cemetery of Mr. X,” since many who end up there are outcasts, unidentified people, or those like Hani, without official documentation. Six of Damayanti’s friends are buried at Putat Jaya, and, in late February, she went back to pay her respects. Unable to locate her friends’ gravesites, she stood beside a freshly dug open grave, half-filled with rainwater from the previous night’s downpour. It was only one meter deep, and too short to accommodate an adult’s coffin.
“[Hani] was buried like an animal,” Damayanti recalled, her voice trembling. “Put inside a knee-deep grave, with only a wooden headstone. Without a name, just identification numbers.” She wondered aloud, “Just because we don’t own ID cards, does that mean we can be buried like this?”
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