T

he Indonesian Commission on Child Protection (KPAI) has called for a ban on violent video games, pornography and alcohol, attributing them to the cause of violent behavior among students in the country.

KPAI chairman Asrorun Ni'€™am Sholeh said on Wednesday that there was a trend of students displaying violent behavior toward other students, with the commission receiving more reports of bullying and fights in 2015 compared to last year.

'€œThe rising number of incidents of violence in schools shows that there is an environmental factor that is not conducive for child protection,'€ he said.

Asrorun said pornography and games influenced violent behavior.

'€œVideo games trigger violent behavior because school-age children are especially familiar with the gaming world, and amid the rapid development of technology, children favor video games,'€ he told The Jakarta Post. '€œUnfortunately, the majority of video games have violent content.'€

Asrorun said that children had the tendency to imitate what they observed, which was why video games posed a danger.

'€œFirst, they become very permissive to violent acts. They will settle matters, no matter how small, through violence. Not to mention some games are interactive, which speed up the internalization process in kids,'€ he said.

When asked about real-life examples of violent video games that were proven to have triggered violent behavior among students, Asrorun cited a string of cases in 2006 allegedly triggered by wrestling TV show SmackDown, as well as the suicide of a 16-year-old student allegedly influenced by anime.

While wrestling-themed video games were popular in the 2000s, SmackDown was heavily criticized for allegedly influencing kids to imitate wrestling moves.

According to KPAI'€™s year-end report, the number of children reported for bullying in schools increased to 79 in 2015 from 67 in 2014. As for student brawls, the number of incidents more than doubled to 103 in 2015 from 46 in 2014.

Meanwhile, the number of children who committed physical violent acts outside schools decreased in 2015 to 76 from 105 in 2014. The number of children alleged to have committed verbal abuse, such as threats and intimidation, decreased to 16 in 2015 from 27 in 2014.

Asrorun said incidents outside of school had decreased because the environment outside schools had changed for the better.

'€œWe have seen an increase in awareness among the public, including in families. People are realizing the importance of implementing a mechanism to protect children, but that awareness is not as prevalent in schools. This is why education policymakers need to create a schooling environment that is friendly to kids and other staffers, such as librarians, counselors and physical education teachers,'€ he said.

A decline was also recorded in the numbers of children reported as victims of both sexual and physical abuse.

The number of victims of sexual violence dropped to 193 in 2015 from 656 in 2014, while the number victims of physical abuse also decreased to 182 in 2015 from 273 in 2014.

'€œIt is because there is a national anti-violence toward children movement that is also stipulated in a presidential instruction,'€ Asrorun said.

Child-sex abuse cases started to show a downward trend in October this year, the same time the government started throwing around the idea of punishing sex offenders with chemical castration, according to Asrorun.