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hildren and teenagers in Indonesia are likely to fall victim to cyberbullying because of poor legal protections and low awareness among parents and children.

Cyberbullying is when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text messages, or when someone posts something online about another person that they do not like.

Children and teenagers are not bulletproof against this type of bullying, as shown by last April’s case of Sonya Ekarina Sembiring Depari, a senior high school student in Medan. She was harshly bullied by netizens after she threatened a traffic policewoman by claiming to be the daughter of a police general. Her actual father, Makmur Depari, died because of a heart condition, allegedly made worse because he was severely distressed by the netizens bullying his daughter without mercy. Following the death of her father, Sonya became depressed.

The case of Sonya is an extreme case of how cyberbullying can destroy an adolescent’s life, but cyberbullying does not have to claim a life in order to affect children and adolescents.

“Just imagine if a child was told that he or she was stupid. His or her confidence would disappear and it would hamper his or her development. Maybe all this time we think someone getting mocked on Facebook is normal, but it actually disturbs a child’s development,” the Health Ministry’s family health director, Eni Gustina, said on Wednesday.

According to the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI), cyberbullying is becoming rampant among children as the ages of netizens get younger.

“Indonesia is very active in social media and yet the protection for children against cyberbullying is still lacking,” IDAI member Catharine Mayung Sambo said.

For instance, there are no regulations establishing the minimum age requirement for someone to have an account on social media. Most social media sites set 13 years as the minimum age to sign up and have a profile, but in any case it is easy enough for a child to lie and proof of ID is rarely sought.

Furthermore, children and teenagers in Indonesia still have low literacy when it comes to the internet.

UNICEF child protection specialist Astrid Gonzaga Dionisio stressed that digital literacy was crucial to preventing violence that young people could encounter online, especially by instilling in them an awareness of online safety, as well as in their family members.

“Parents should also be literate, not only the children,” Astrid said. This low literacy and lack of protection make children and teenagers especially prone to cyberbullying.