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he Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) has received a decreasing number of reports of violence against or among children this year.

The number fell to 3,849 from 4,620 in 2016, as announced by the government-sanctioned KPAI on Monday.

However, the complexity of the violence was worse, and was mainly due to, according to KPAI member Putu Elvina, a shifting trend of those involved in such incidents.

In previous years, the victims were mostly girls, while the perpetrators were mostly boys.

In 2017, however, about 54 percent of the victims and abusers were boys and 46 percent were girls. The youngest victim was 4.5 years old, while the youngest perpetrator was around 10 years old.

“Today, boys are prone to violence committed by their peers,” she said, highlighting that the types of violence were varied, from verbal bullying to sexual harassment.

Moreover, most of the cases of sexual violence among minors were related to pornography widely available online.

Margaret Aliyatul Maimunah, from the KPAI’s cybercrime division, said they were triggered to express their sexuality after consuming pornographic photos or videos via mobile messaging services like WhatsApp and LINE, or social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

On Twitter alone, the commission has recorded about 750,000 pornographic videos circulated under the hashtag #VGK (video gay kids).

The #VGK issue made headlines in September after the Jakarta Police arrested three owners of online accounts allegedly used to sell videos of male children through Twitter and Telegram. The suspects, the police said, were well-connected to international pedophile rings.

In its bid to solve the problem, the KPAI has summoned representatives from some internet companies and ordered them to set up better systems to reduce the spread of such content.

“The companies said they could not take down pornographic content automatically — they need reports from hundreds or thousands of users so that the system can erase the contents immediately,” Margaret said.

Retno Listyarti, from the KPAI’s education division, revealed another finding, which showed that cases of violence this year among children mostly involved elementary school kids fighting over petty issues.

A recent brawl among elementary students in Makassar, South Sulawesi, went viral on the internet, which according to Retno could indicate the possibility of similar cases in other regions.

“They were fighting over puppy love. A male student from an elementary school got angry because the girl he liked chose to be with a boy from another school,” she said.

Realizing that reducing the number of cases of child violence cannot be done solely by the government, the KPAI called on parents to pay more attention to the upbringing of their children.

Various institutions have started an initiative to build child-friendly areas in public spaces, which was lauded by the KPAI. (vla)