Fana F.S. Putra – When an 11-year-old girl in East Jakarta fell into a coma in January and died as a result of an infection contracted after she was repeatedly raped by her father, there was an outpouring of indignation over how such a crime was allowed to take place.

As it turned out, the case was no isolated incident, with 357 reports of sexual abuse of minors filed with children's rights activists in the first six months of the year in the Greater Jakarta area.

And ground zero, says Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA), is East Jakarta, which last year accounted for 87 percent of the 662 child sex abuse cases reported in the capital and its satellite cities.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday to present the commission's mid-year report, Arist urged the Jakarta administration to turn East Jakarta into a pilot project for a "child-friendly city," in a bid to reverse the worrying trend.

"What we're dealing with is a very real problem of rampant sexual violence against children in East Jakarta," he said. "That's why the Jakarta authorities need to turn the municipality into a child-friendly city."

Any measures to achieve this, Arist went on, should focus on addressing the underlying problems that gave rise to predatory sexual behavior, including high rates of poverty and unemployment, and a high population density. East Jakarta is the most populous of the five Jakarta municipalities, with an official population of 2.69 million, according to the 2010 census – although experts say the extensive slum areas and informal settlements there mean the real number is likely much higher.

"We need the community to get more involved as well in preventing the sexual abuse of children," Arist said.

"That means that neighborhood unit heads are expected to intervene if they suspect there's any indication in their area of child abuse, so that the cases can be dealt with much earlier."

He questioned the decision by Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo to declare North Jakarta as his administration's focus for a child-friendly city pilot program.

Among the points that Joko raised to justify the choice were the relatively large number of playgrounds there and the various street children shelters in the municipality – which has the fewest inhabitants and lowest population density of all five municipalities in the capital.

Arist argued that the administration's logic was flawed, and that it should be the region where the sex abuse problem was most acute where the city administration should focus most of its efforts.

"I don't know what concept they're working on or what indicators they're basing their decision on," he said.

"But what's for certain is that any program to develop a child-friendly city shouldn't be prioritized in an area that's already relatively safe for children. If we don't get the problem in the worst-affected area in check, then we're going to continue seeing an increase in the number of child abuse cases."

He added that the East Jakarta subdistricts with the highest number of abuse cases were Kramat Jati, Ciracas and Cakung, all at the southern periphery of the municipality.

Arist said that in light of the overwhelming number of cases in East Jakarta – 576 out of a total of 662 cases throughout 2012 – Komnas PA had asked Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama to consider the need for switching the focus of the child-friendly program from North Jakarta to East Jakarta.

"We've asked the deputy governor to address this problem, particularly by dealing with the areas with the highest rates of child sex abuse, which are in East Jakarta. However, we haven't gotten a response yet," he said.

National emergency

While the problem is most acute in East Jakarta, Arist said Komnas PA had identified a worrying increase in the number of child sex abuse cases in the Greater Jakarta area as a whole.

In the first six months of the year, the commission recorded 1,032 cases of child abuse, 535 of which were sexual in nature. That puts the total for 2013 on track to surpass last year's figure for sex abuse cases.

"That means that about 90 children a month experience some form of sexual abuse," Arist said.

He added that rape was reported in 280 of the cases recorded, while molestation was reported in 182 cases. Nine of the victims died as a result of the abuse, while 345 were left traumatized by the experience.

In the majority of cases, the perpetrators were people who were close to the victims, including members of the immediate or extended family, friends and neighbors, Arist said.

He added that cases where fathers abused their own children, as in the case of the young girl who died in January, were particularly egregious, and attributed the problem to a cultural mind-set that treated children as objects rather than individuals in their own right.

"This way of thinking that children are the property of their parents to do with as they please must be eradicated," he said.

"It leads people to the assumption that they are justified in doing whatever they want to their children. But children are meant to be loved, protected and nurtured by their parents. That's why we need both society and the government to help address this issue."

He called on law enforcement authorities to take a harsher line on sex crimes against minors, and also urged lawmakers to consider amending prevailing laws to instate a minimum 20-year prison sentence for sex crimes. The current legislation does not carry a minimum sentence.

Komnas PA has declared 2013 a "national emergency" year for child sex abuse, based on the increasing number of reported cases.

In 2010, the commission recorded 2,046 cases of child abuse nationwide, 42 percent of them sexual. In 2011, there was a slight increase to 2,059 cases, but the proportion of sex abuse cases surged to 58 percent.

Last year, the number shot up to 2,637 cases, 62 percent of them sexual.

"Remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more cases go unreported," Arist said earlier this year.