Not Only Monitoring, but Also Sexual Education Needed to Fight Child Porn: ECPAT
Jakarta. When a group of mothers earlier this week helped the police uncover a child pornography group on Facebook, the news shocked many, but ECPAT Indonesia says the case is nothing new.
"The advancement of technology increases the number of victims; there's no monitoring from parents," Rio Hendra, ECPAT Indonesia legal service coordinator told the Jakarta Globe on Saturday (18/03).
In accordance with the latest government regulation, signed by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in May, child sex offenders, if convicted, have to serve at least 10 years in prison.
In response to the regulation, ECPAT has urged the government, the Ministry of Social Affairs and victim and witness protection agency (LPSK) to provide rehabilitation programs for convicts to make sure the offences will not be repeated.
"It's not only victims who need rehabilitation, if perpetrators do not receive counseling, they will become more dangerous," Rio said.
According to Rio, some of the culprits were once victims themselves, and many of them are still children.
It is not only the lack of monitoring from parents, but also the absence of sexual education, he added, that makes children so easily become both victims and perpetrators — without proper education, they learn about sex from porn sites.
In many cases children do not realize they are victims of sexual abuse and voluntarily share their own photographs or engage in sex video calls with strangers, considering it an easy way to earn money.
Social media, Skype, Line or Whatsapp, have been used as platforms to share porn content, with "buyers" paying for it around Rp 200,000 ($15).
ECPAT with the Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) and Australian Federal Police have recently found, after suspicious money transfers to minors, an indication of a pedophile network operating in Australia, Japan, South Korea and several European countries, purchasing porn content from Indonesian children.
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