The Social Services Ministry, in cooperation with five other ministries, is planning to work on a memorandum of understanding in order to reach restorative justice for children who are in conflict with the law.
The MoU is expected to help the departments to work together in reducing child rights violations and ensure skill provisions for children who have been through a lawsuit.
Last month in East Jakarta, a 10-year-old boy admitted to killing his stepmother, saying that she often treated him badly.
Recently, police said the boy might face a 15-year imprisonment.
Previously in May, 10 boys working as informal shoe shiners at Soekarno-Hatta Airport were detained by the police, who had charged them with gambling.
Child protection activists said the boys were merely playing coins while placing a small bet.
During the legal process, some children were forced to skip school and miss the national examination.
The Social Services Ministry's head of subdirectorate service and rehabilitation for children in conflict with the law Puti Chairida Anwar told The Jakarta Post recently that her office would work with the Health Ministry, the National Education Ministry, the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry and the National Police to handle the troubled children.
"We are working to produce the MoU among these departments by end of this year.
"The MoU is expected to be our firm legal basis in promoting restorative justice, especially for kids in conflict with the law.
"When the MoU is ready, we can organize a complete campaign of restorative justice next year."
She added that the MoU initially was meant to be ready before the new social services minister took the lead.
Director general for social rehabilitation and services Makmur Sunusi said that state apparatus must uphold the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was ratified by Indonesia in 1999, and 2002's Child Protection Law in handling children in conflict with the law.
"These *CRC and child protection law* are the very basis of our duty in promoting child protection, including children in conflict with the law."
The four core principles of the convention, which was formed in 1989, are nondiscrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.
Puti further said that the restorative justice approach would avoid children following unnecessary stressful legal processes that adults would normally endure.
"I don't think that children *in conflict with the law* should experience living in jail.
"I believe they deserve a diversified trial, which provides alternative punishment, such as returning to their parents with strict supervi-sion or undergo their reprimand in a better place, like a rehabilitation center.
"The rehab center must also provide a different room for each crime or mischievousnes, because I believe that kids became delinquent due to a bad system."
Puti noted the phenomenon that street children were mostly born to underprivileged parents.
"They learn to behave inappropriately from the streets."
In a number of countries, the legal system apply social work as a form of legal sanction to underage citizens who have violated the law.
Puti said that she disagreed with juvenile prison and, even worse, consignment to adult prison.
"In such a crowded place like juvenile prison, kids could learn to conduct crimes.
"Meanwhile, should any kids in conflict with the law be, somehow put in adult prison, their *children's* rights have just been abused."
It is common to see troubled children in adult prisons - both in the penitentiary and police jail - due to limited space in juvenile prisons.
Tangerang Juvenile Penitentiary, for example, also accommodates inmates older than 17 years old.
