I

n the wake of a recent group-bullying case involving a female student at the SMA 9 Ciputat state senior high school in South Tangerang, Banten, the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) said that it agreed with the South Jakarta Police'€™s decision to use mediation to resolve the case as long as the case will not be ignored.

'€œCases like these attract our full attention because we want to prevent them from repeating. Children must feel safe in their daily environments. Mediation can be a solution as long as it is done right,'€ KPAI commissioner Erlinda told The Jakarta Post recently.

Recently, head of the South Jakarta Police'€™s Women and Children Unit First Insp. Nunu Suparni explained that the police would most likely resolve the case through mediation because the victim and the perpetrators were still underage.

'€œIt always gets a little complicated when we process such cases legally. We want to try mediation after we have questioned the witnesses and the alleged perpetrators because they are still young and they will eventually learn from their actions,'€ she said.

This was in contrast with the Jakarta Police'€™s original statement that if the perpetrators were found guilty of bullying, they could face up to two and a half years in prison under Article 281 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) for indecent acts that violate social norms.

Furthermore, Nunu explained that the victim originally did not want to go to the police, but did not receive a satisfactory response from the school when she first filed a complaint about the incident.

The victim'€™s mother filed an incident report with the Jakarta Police last Friday. She told reporters that her daughter had only been at the school for a week when she was dragged into an empty classroom near the staff room by a group of 12th grade students.

Several of the senior students allegedly ripped her school uniform and wrote obscenities on it. According to her mother, the incident was witnessed by 23 students, most of whom were girls, while several male students stood guard in front of the empty classroom. The main bullies, the mother said, were two female senior students.

So far, the South Jakarta Police have questioned the victim and her mother and they will soon summon a teacher from the school for questioning.

The mother also said she had filed a complaint with the school and had asked to view the video footage recorded by a CCTV camera installed near the classroom.

However, the school principal said that the camera had not been turned on during the time of the incident because the camera operated during school hours only.

Erlinda said that if that was true, the school administration was extremely sloppy for not providing maximum security for its students and should be reprimanded.

Bullying cases are not rare. In May a 5th grader was beaten up in his classroom by a peer, sustaining injuries that eventually led to his death. Two 10th graders were also allegedly beaten to death by their seniors on a mountaineering club trip. (fss)