T

he National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) said on Tuesday that the number of child-abuse cases in the country had reached an all-time high this year and called on the government to pay more attention to the pressing issue.

Komnas PA secretary general Samsul Ridwan said that it received 2,898 reports of violence against children nationwide, with 59.3 percent of the reports involving sexual abuse.

The commission, which operates under the Social Affairs Ministry, claimed that the remaining 40.7 percent included cases of physical abuse, negligence, abduction, illegal adoption and drugs, among others.

The number had risen from 2,737 cases in 2014.

'€œMost of the abuse occurs in the private sphere, such as among families or in a school environment,'€ Samsul said on Tuesday at a press conference in East Jakarta.

The same data said that up to 62 percent of child abuse occurred in the private sphere while 38 percent occurred in the public sphere, such as in shopping centers and green open spaces.

'€œAccording to Komnas PA data, most of the perpetrators of violence against children are those closest to the victim, such as teachers, fathers, older brothers, close relatives and even school attendants,'€ Samsul said, adding that Komnas PA had recorded 21.6 million cases of child abuse since 2010.

Reports of child abuse have been rife since the beginning of the year. The cases included the murder of 8-year-old Engeline Margriet Megawe, whose body was found buried in her mother'€™s backyard in Denpasar, Bali, and the rape and murder of a 9-year-old whose body was found in October inside a cardboard box in Kalideres, West Jakarta.

Samsul lambasted the government and accused it of not taking child abuse seriously. He said that Komnas PA had sent a request for an audience with President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to discuss the possibility of declaring child abuse an extraordinary crime, much like terrorism and drug abuse. A regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) would also provide the legal basis to allow chemical castration as a form of punishment for
child-sex offenders.

Last week, Women'€™s Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise claimed that the controversial Perppu had reached the final stages of design and would be publicly announced soon, despite protests from human rights activists who said that chemical castration for child abuse perpetrators was a rights violation.

The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) also recorded a high number of child-abuse cases.The KPAI recorded 3,820 cases where children were either victims or perpetrators of abuse from January to Dec. 18.

KPAI data said that the number of cases involving children had decreased since last year when the commission recorded 5,066 cases.

KPAI deputy chairman Susanto told The Jakarta Post that the government did not perceive crimes against children as serious crimes. Furthermore, he also agreed that punishment for perpetrators of violence against children should be much heavier than the laws currently stipulate.

'€œIf [the abuse] affects the victim for the long term then we must consider imprisoning perpetrators for the rest of their lives so that the punishment gives a sense of justice to the victims,'€ he said.