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ev. Seprianus Adonis, 31, needed many years before he could forgive the abuse committed by his own father. The turning point that led him to forget his resentment was a good parenting seminar held by an NGO in 2016.

“The pain from physical abuse may be relieved but the hurt will stay inside your heart,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

“I have always reminded parents about it, to try and prevent their children from feeling resentment for a long time,” he went on.

Adonis’ parents hail from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), a province where a local proverb that states “on the tip of the cane, there is gold,” is widely adopted. The proverb means that physical punishment is necessary to educate children.

Currently serving as a reverend for Masehi Injili Church in Neke, a village populated by 200 families in South Timor Tengah (TTS), NTT, Adonis has relentlessly campaigned to end violence against children.

When he arrived two years ago, traditional leaders in TTS had enforced physical punishment as a measure to educate children.

“This was one of the major challenges we, religious leaders and the local child protection agency, were facing in tackling child abuse in the region,” said Adonis.

He believes that faith leaders, who are widely considered as having the same level of public trust as traditional leaders, have the strength to diminish local wisdoms that encourage physical punishment.

“Religious leaders are among the people they trust, in almost every aspect of their life,” said Adonis.

He shared his story at a child protection workshop for Muslim and Christian religious leaders held by the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry in cooperation with Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI), a Christian NGO, and Islamic Relief Indonesia (IRI), a local branch of a United Kingdom-based NGO.

The workshop was based on a training module entitled “Channel of Hope.” The module aims at motivating and building the capacity of religious leaders when addressing harmful traditional practices toward children.

WVI created the module last year, which has been revised this year to accommodate a Muslim perspective.

The religious leaders received training with the hope that, given their respective status in society, they could speed up the dissemination of child protection guidelines found in the module.

At least 70 religious leaders from 43 cities have received training. They mostly come from areas in the eastern part of Indonesia, including NTT, Maluku Islands and West Nusa Tenggara.

The Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry’s undersecretary for religious organization and community participation, Maydian Werdiastuti, said all religious teachings had the power to prevent child abuse.

“We expect that this workshop can teach the participants about the actual implementation of child protection,” she said.

Islamic Relief Indonesia program coordinator Rizky Mohamad said leaders of all religions, including Islam, should play a bigger role in preventing child abuse because all religions encouraged this.

“However, there are still leaders who don’t know about the existing religious guidance related to child abuse,” he said.

WVI’s faith and development manager Anil Dawan said the module had a success rate of more than 50 percent, based on last year’s evaluation.

“Some of them [faith leaders] cried when the statistics on child abuse showed it was still prevalent.” he said.

The Child Protection Commission recorded 3,894 reported cases of abuse in 2017, an 18 percent decrease from the previous year. (srs)