Ministry of Social Affairs Commitment to Protect Children from the Dangers of Pornography

JAKARTA (August 19, 2020) - Director General of Social Rehabilitation Harry Hikmat was one of the speakers in the Webinar on Efforts to Improve Child Protection from the Dangers of Pornography organized by the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI).

According to Harry, the social order and the ideals of the nation are at great risk of failing to be achieved if children as the nation's successors are addicted to pornography and suffer brain damage. Law Number 14 of 2008 onconcerning Pornography mandates that everyone is obliged to protect children from the influence of pornography and prevent children's access to pornographic information.

Harry explained that forms of pornography involving children include Cyberbullying, Sexual Extortion (threatening children to perform sexual activities), Grooming, Live-streaming pornography involving children, involvement of children in all forms of sexual activity for pornographic purposes, online sexual harassment and exploitation of children. .

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, children spend more time at home and use smartphones and access the internet, so the risk of exposure to pornography is very high. We need to work hard and make strategies so that the devices held by children are not misused / exposed to pornography," said Harry.

For this reason, a comprehensive response to pornography is needed, including a multi-sector approach (social, education, health, law and others), trans-professional (social workers, educators, psychologists, doctors, legal experts, psychiatrists and others) and building commitment all parties. Furthermore, multi-target responses (children and peers/peer groups, families, actors, schools, neighbours, communities/other communities), multi-budget and multi-approach.

The Director General of Social Rehabilitation said that the social rehabilitation process at the Ministry of Social Affairs was carried out through a personal-based, family-based, community-based, and residential-based approach through social rehabilitation centers/orphanages.

"In the future, we will prioritize family and community-based approaches and continue to develop them. The Ministry of Social Affairs is committed to transforming its strategy in child protection by ensuring that family and community-based approaches are a top priority and the stages of professional social work standards will be applied consistently," said Harry.

Several steps or efforts to protect children related to pornography include promoting, developing and implementing a comprehensive national legal framework to improve standards and policies for protecting children from all forms of sexual exploitation, increasing the fulfillment of children's rights, being gender-responsive, age-responsive through support services and social welfare programs, encourage the formation of a special national unit to conduct investigations and support related to the handling of child pornography, strengthen monitoring and data collection, reporting mechanisms and referrals through hotlines to report suspected illegal practices of pornography involving children.

The next step is to increase legal, judicial and professional capacity through relevant and renewable continuous training, multi-practical cooperation in child protection, promote national education programs and school curriculum to raise awareness of all forms of child sexual exploitation and to strengthen children, youth, parents, guardians, caregivers, practitioners and the community.

Furthermore, mobilizing and increasing engagement with the private sector and relevant policy makers to be actively involved in prevention, response measurement and monitoring through CSR, collaboration for the development of early detection, reducing and reporting illegal content related to child sexual exploitation and crime.

According to Harry, Perpetrators, Victims and Witnesses of Pornography are included in the framework of  children against the Law (ABH) where the process is regulated in the Child Criminal Justice System Law (UU SPPA). The SPPA Law provides a mandate to the Ministry of Social Affairs regarding the implementation of ABH Social Rehabilitation, assistance to children (Social Workers & Social Welfare Workers) and the provision of facilities and infrastructure, namely the Social Welfare Organizing Institution/LPKS (for children against the Law), and the Social Protection House/RPS ( for Child Victims of Crime & Child Witnesses of Crime).

ABH Social Rehabilitation is aimed at Child Victims of Crime, Child Witness to Crime, Children Under 12 years of age, implementation of action for children in conflict with the law. Until now, the Ministry of Social Affairs partners in social rehabilitation services for ABH includes 98 LPKSin 30 provinces and 39 RPS in 17 provinces.

The Director General of Social Rehabilitation conveyed the efforts that had been made by the Ministry of Social Affairs in handling pornography, including through the Social Worker Goes to School program, namely through the Directorate of Child Social Rehabilitation, social workers came to schools with programs aimed at preventing violence from occurring in the community.

The next effort is through Community-based ABH Social Rehabilitation Protection (PRSABHBK), namely community-based Social Rehabilitation that relies on the role of families and communities/community groups and utilizes various community initiatives, potentials and resources.

PRSABHBK is a community or community working group that focuses its activities on efforts directed at preventing and handling ABH, including supporting the implementation of social rehabilitation services for ABH by prioritizing a restorative justice approach as outlined in the SPPA Law.

The head of KPAI, Susanto conveyed that the new trend of pornography in Indonesia is currently still a serious problem as well as a challenge for child protection in Indonesia. There are many cases where Indonesian children are exposed to pornography, whether they are involved as perpetrators or even as victims. Pornography cases become a ghost for Indonesian children.

Often the issue of pornography is viewed from moral issues as well as religious issues, that pornography is not allowed, violates ethics, etc., as one of the issues that is often echoed by the public. “In fact, the issue of pornography that we are currently facing in the global context of pornography is an extraordinary business issue. This is an extraordinary industry that generates billions of rupiah,” said Susanto. One journal states that the pornography business can reach 97 billion United States Dollars (US).

"We all have to stick together. Preventing pornography is not just providing literacy for children regarding the dangers of pornography, but on the other hand, such as corporations, the state and other parties to work together to unite, work together to ensure that our children do not become victims of pornography, "said Susanto. It is possible that pornography business networks carry out various innovative breakthroughs that may not be detected early, whether Indonesian children are being targeted by the pornography business or not.

"There must be big steps from all of us, state officials, law enforcement officers, corporate responsibility so that our children are not vulnerable to being exposed to pornographic content," concluded Susanto.

The Webinar on Efforts to Improve Child Protection from the Dangers of Pornography also presented 3 (three) other resource persons, namely the KPAI Commissioner for Cyber ​​Crime and Pornography, Margaret Aliyatul Maimunah, Director of Information Management Applications at the Ministry of Communications and Informatics, Mariam F. Barata, and the head of the 4 Sub-Directorate 1 of Cyber ​​Headquarters Police, Langgeng Utomo.