Jakarta. Indonesia's Women Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry, Communications and Informatics Ministry and US internet television network Netflix held a public discussion on internet safety for children in Jakarta on Monday (12/02) as part of a series of events held around Safer Internet Day, which fell on Feb. 6.

Academics, local stakeholders and NGO representatives attended the "Create, Connect, Respect: Empowering Parents to Guiding Connected Children" discussion to find ways to try to counter the internet's negative effects on children in Indonesia.

The main speakers in the discussion were Valentina Gintings from the Women Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry, Margaret Aliyatul from the Indonesian Child Protection Commission, Rizki Ameliah from Siberkreasi, Stephen Balkam, the founder and chief executive of Family Online Safety Institute, Indriyatno Banyumurti from ICT Watch and Netflix Asia Pacific managing director Kuek Yu-Chuang.

Balkam said in a statement that online safety is everyone’s responsibility and everybody has to work together to maintain it.

According to him, the discussion provided a good platform to exchange ideas and insights on internet use and learn about local issues and problems.

"Open and sustainable dialogue is the only way to find solutions for online safety issues and problems," he said.

The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) reported 514 cases of child pornography and other forms of cyber crime committed against children last year.

KPAI commissioner Margaret Aliyatul Maimunah said in a statement the number of child pornography cases discovered in Indonesia has been increasing dramatically since 2016 to now be in the top three issues for children in the commission's list.

Valentina from the Women Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry said parents, the government and everyone involved in providing internet services that children can access have to work together to monitor their online behavior and also set up guidelines to protect them from damaging content.

"The government's role is to work with internet service providers to give parents the information, tools and resources necessary to ensure children are protected when they surf the internet," she said.

Netflix's Yu-Chuang said it encourages families to make wise decisions when streaming content from the internet, including its own service.

"Internet safety depends a lot on the environment we live in. It should be a shared responsibility among all the parties involved. We're proud and honored to be part of that dialogue," he said.