Dyah Ayu Pitaloka, Novianti Setuningsih & Rizky Amelia, Jakarta/Malang – As people across the country marked National Children's Day on Tuesday, a minister said sexual harassment has become the second highest crime committed by Indonesian children, after robbery.

Justice and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin said the increase had occurred in several provinces in the country since 2011.

"Over the past two years, cases of sexual harassment, both committed by street children and students, has become a trend and this has occurred in several provinces and districts," he said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Data at the ministry's Directorate General of Corrections in June showed that 1,182 children had committed sexual crimes, with only one of them a teenage girl.

Amir attributed such behavior to, among other things, technological advancement and weak supervision from both parents and society.

Aside from sexual harassment, Indonesian children have also become the victims of violence committed by their teachers.

Data from the Women Empowerment and Child Agency in Malang recorded 83 cases of violence against children so far this year with most taking place on school grounds.

"Until now, reports on violence mostly came from the school environment," Malang Women and Child Protection Agency chief Pantjaningsih said on Tuesday.

Pantjaningsih attributed the violence at schools to poor economic conditions, family discord and children's behavior in school. "Many schools still haven't adopted the anti-violence strategy in teaching children," Pantjaningsih told the Jakarta Globe in Malang.

In Batu, East Java, a child refused to return to school after his teacher hit him in class for talking to a friend. Moch Sohibul, a fifth-grader, has stopped going to school for eight months and is now helping his father sell fried bananas.

"His teacher hit him in class around September [last year]. Since then he has been afraid to return to school," Sohibul's relative, Sukadi, said.

He said the teacher hit Sohibul on the eye. "He was hit from the back. It was probably because his teacher was angry at him because he did not do well in his school work," Sukadi said.

He added that Sohibul did not want to return to school because he was afraid that he would get more of the same treatment. "He did go back to school for a little while after he got hit but he felt that his friends shunned him," he said.

Batu Police spokesman AKP Yantofan said no police report was filed related to the incident because both parties agreed to settle it amicably with the help of the police as the mediator.

Indonesian Commission for Child Protection deputy chairman Apong Herlina said physical punishment will not solve any problem.

Apong said corporal punishment for misbehaving students does not serve as a lesson for them, while physical punishment on a quiet students would traumatize them and embarrass them in front of their peers.

"The psychological factors between a quiet and a naughty student are very different," Apong said.

Justice Minister Amir announced sentence reductions for 684 child prisoners in coinciding with National Children's Day.

"The sentence reductions on National Children's Day were given based on the Justice and Human Rights Ministerial decree," Akbar Hadi, spokesman for the ministry's directorate general of corrections, said on Tuesday.

He said the number of children detained in Indonesia had reached 5,709.