Indah Setiawati, Jakarta – The House of Representatives is being asked to revise the 2002 Children Protection Law this year in response to the rampant number of child abuse cases, with the highest rate recorded in Greater Jakarta.
Mounting demand to amend the law has come from the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) and the government-sanctioned, Indonesian Commission on Child Protection (KPAI).
The idea to revise the law was proposed last year but it never made it to the House's national legislation program as lawmakers had a number of other bills to deliberate.
"I plan to push for the possibility of revising the law after we have completed all the documentation for a bill on the certification of halal products," Ida Fauziah, the head of House Commission VIII overseeing religion and social affairs, told The Jakarta Post.
"We've seen many cases recently of sexual and physical abuse against children, while the punishments for such crimes as stipulated in the law are too lenient."
She said heavier sentences and granting greater powers to the KPAI were among the issues to be discussed for the revision of the law.
The proposal to amend the law, which requires a state of urgency, will need approval from the House's legislative committee and the Law and Human Rights Ministry.
Legislative committee secretariat head Tri Budi Utami said it could take from four months to more than a year to deliberate a law's revisions.
"Sometimes, the draft does not follow the proper administrative procedure, so we have to return it for corrections," she told the Post.
Komnas PA head Arist Merdeka Sirait said the organization wanted to see sentences for offenders ranging from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment, with no possibility of remission.
The current law carries a sentence of between three and 15 years' imprisonment.
Arist also suggested classifications for perpetrators who had a certain status or profession. For example, adult relatives, teachers or police officers, who are supposed to protect children, should be handed additional prison time of one-third the original sentence if found guilty.
"Based on our research, court verdicts have not delivered justice to the victims. Nobody has been sentenced to the maximum punishment of 15 years in prison as stipulated in the current law," he said.
Arist said sexual abuse convicts elsewhere often faced severe punishments.
In 2011, South Korea became the first Asian country to impose chemical castrations on child sex offenders. Last week, India passed a new bill that will allow the death penalty to be handed down to repeat rape offenders, following a fatal gang rape of a student in December last year.
Komnas PA recorded 127 child abuse cases in Greater Jakarta alone from January to mid-March, 85 of which were sexual crimes. It recorded 72 sexual assaults against children in the first quarter of last year.
Last week, a 16-year-old girl from Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, reported to police that she had repeatedly been raped by her father. She claimed the rapes stopped only after he had impregnated her.