Questioning victims’ sexual history in court constitutes secondary victimization rooted in victim-blaming rape myths. Amid increasing sexual violence reports and the enactment of Indonesia’s 2025 Criminal Procedure Code incorporating adversarial elements, no statutory rule restricts such evidence. This study analyzes Indonesian criminal law’s protection against sexual history questioning, identifies its weaknesses, and formulates an ideal rape shield rule. This normative legal research uses statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches, examining the United States and England. Findings reveal fragmented protection relying on Supreme Court Regulation Number 3 of 2017, which binds only judges, prohibits questioning for limited purposes, excludes investigations, lacks legal consequences, and cannot hierarchically regulate criminal procedure. The proposed model combines the general prohibition and closed exceptions under Federal Rule of Evidence 412 with the explicit prohibition against attacking complainants’ credibility under section 41 of England’s Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. Enacted through statute, this model would bind all law enforcement officials from the inquiry stage, with admissibility determined in a closed hearing by a judge outside the trial panel. It balances victims’ right to dignity with defendants’ right to a fair trial.
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