Kennial Caroline Laia, Jakarta – It started with an allegation last month that a 6-year-old child had been sexually abused at the Jakarta International School.

In a matter of days, the issue of child sex abuse took the country by storm, with nearly daily revelations from across the country about children suffering unspeakable acts at the hands of authority figures, usually teachers.

"This is horrifying," says Arist Merdeka Sirait, the secretary general of the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection, or KPAI. "It's beyond my ability to explain."

He says his organization has received 472 reports of violence against children in the first four months of the year – on track to surpass the 925 reports it received in the whole of 2013. More than half of the reports allege some form of sexual abuse.

"This is sad," Arist says. "This is a crime that should be taken seriously. It has become a matter of urgency, an issue that the entire nation must rally around. Our young people are being threatened in their childhood."

He says the revelations make clear that there are not sufficient safe havens for the nation's children.

"How can we make sure that our kids are safe? With so much sexual abuse taking place, we will never know if predators are lurking in places where kids play and interact socially," he says. "No one can seem to guarantee the safety of our children, whether at schools, parks, in homes..."

Arist says the government has an important role to play in addressing the issue, but has so far proved disappointing, acting only after revelations of abuse have come to light and doing little in the way of prevention.

"Where is the government on this issue? Where is the minister of education? Where is the minister of women's empowerment and child protection?" he asks. "Even the first lady hasn't said anything."

Pediatric psychologist Katarina Ira Puspita doesn't take quite as bleak a view, saying the number of new cases coming to light don't signal a surge in child abuse, but rather a willingness by the victims and their families to come forward and report the cases, emboldened by the publicity raised by the JIS case.

"The sexual abuse of children has been going on for a long time, but society has tended to overlook it. When the JIS case came into the public glare, the rest followed," she says.

Katarina cites a litany of factors behind the sexual abuse of children, including poor supervision by parents preoccupied with other tasks.

"One of them is the lack of control from parents over the children's environment," she says. "Most sexual abuse cases happen to children from underprivileged families. Dire financial conditions force the parents to work, often leaving them little time to take proper care of their children. This is where the control is lost."

She says that when this happens, "most of the kids turn to environments that they don't know or understand for their social interaction. "As a consequence, the chance of these children falling victim to abuse becomes high," Katarina says.

She says that sometimes the abuse can trigger a vicious cycle that sees the victims prey on children when they grow up. "The effect of such abuse varies widely but is still very serious. It can cause trauma for the children, and can even turn them into sexual predators in the future," she says.

"To prevent this, parents need to maintain an open line of communication with their kids. They can get their kids involved in positive activities where they have full supervision over them. If the impact of the abuse is more serious, they have to consider getting expert help to heal the psychology of the kids."

Arist agrees that lack of parental supervision or involvement in children's lives is a problem. "Everybody's so busy pursuing money that they leave their kids behind," he says. "Our society has become really sick morally, economically and socially. Our nation is shattered."

He cites a recent case of a 12-year-old boy accused of beating an 11-year-old at a school in East Jakarta so severely that the latter died of his injuries days later.

"We know that the case is an indication of a sadistic and ferocious act, but we have to remember that the alleged perpetrator is a kid," he says. "When we visited him, he looked very scared. He needs protection, but on the other hand he has just taken someone's life."

The real culprit, Arist says, is the environment in which children grow up. "When a kid acts, they're recycling what they've seen, whether on television or computer games, which they consume unfiltered," he says.

"Violence among children is not a standalone act. Everybody's involved. That is why this poses a dilemma. On the one hand, the family of the victim needs justice to be done, but on the other hand, the perpetrator is still a kid who needs protection."

Arist says violence among children is the result of lax moral education. "The role of moral education is really important. Basically kids have their emotional intellectual formed within their family," he says.

But Katarina says parents should not take all the blame for their children's violent tendencies.

"The parents might be doing their best to educate their children, but outside the home the kids can interact with violence in ways their parents don't know about," she says. "That said, there's still something missing in terms of the communication between the parents and children."

Like Arist, she blames television and violent computer games for shaping children's behavior. "There are many bad television programs in the television. So does the games. Games increase the level of aggressiveness among children. Again, this is a matter where the parents can do more in terms of supervision," she Katarina says.

Rahajeng Ika, another psychologist, says schools are just as influential as parents, if not more so, in shaping how children think and act. The recent bullying case, she says, "indicates a lack supervision by the school toward students."

"Given that this happened in school, the supervision by the teachers should be questioned," Rahajeng says. "However, we usually overlook things like this. Society's awareness of violence among children is really low."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/child-abuse-scandals-indictment-society-large/