Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – An NGO activist has said Papua needs safe houses as it has quite a high incidence of violence against women and children.
Few cases of violence against women and children can be brought to justice because of the absence of safe houses, she said.
"The number of victims of violence against women and children in Papua is quite high and one of obstacles impeding prompt solution of the violence is the unavailability of safe houses for the victims," said Levina Kalansina of the Papua Women and Children Empowerment Agency.
"A child victim of violence may still suffer psychological trauma even if his or her physical wounds have been treated. In such a situation, he or she really needs a safe house to help him or her to recover from psychological trauma. Unfortunately, Papua has no safe house," she went on.
Levina was speaking at the close of a violence victim assistance training event held on Saturday by World Vision Indonesia (WVI) and Yayasan Sobat Perduli, a Jakarta-based NGO that works to protect children from violence.
Levina said the Papua Women and Children Empowerment Agency had prepared a safe house at the Papua Police headquarters. However, it was not yet able to function.
"The safe house's developer has not yet handed over the keys to us so we cannot yet use it," she said.
WVI area manager for Jayapura and Merauker Radika Pinto said rates of violence against women and children in Papua were getting high and most of them were sexual violence.
"Data from Dok II Hospital in Jayapura shows that it received victims of violence against women and children, which reached 515 cases throughout 2014. Most of the cases were committed by someone known to the victim," he said.
Radika said WVI aimed to make Papua a child-friendly province by providing training programs to improve skills in introducing violence prevention measures and forms of violence against children to the public.
In the four-day training, which ended on Saturday, WVI trained 22 violence victim assistants from three regencies, namely Jayapura, Merauke and Keerom, and Jayapura City. They are to work building awareness in society of the importance of child protection, including publicizing treatments needed to be taken once they encounter cases of violence against children.
"One of reasons that leads to a lack of reports on violence against children is the fact that violence against children is still perceived as a domestic problem outsiders should not interfere in. This shows people still don't know and understand Law No.35/2013 on children protection," said Radika. (ebf)