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Rape child victim in South Jakarta gets assistance, more needs to be done
A possible case of sexual abuse of a child in Manggarai, South Jakarta, adds to a long list of such assaults by family members, according to Komnas Perempuan.
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Illustration of child abuse. (Shutterstock/File)
N
eighborhood Unit 05 of the Manggarai subdistrict is just like most kampung in Jakarta with houses built face-to-face and wall-to-wall in narrow alleys.
A 51-year-old female resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said she often saw her front neighbor, a 9-year-old girl, crying on the balcony of her house, to soon be called inside by her stepfather.
This may have been a sign the neighbor failed to see. In November, the girl told her and three others that she had been raped by her stepfather. The South Jakarta Police officially declared the man a suspect on Monday.
The suspect was charged under Article 76D in conjunction with Article 81 of Law No.35/2014 on child protection that carries a maximum 15 years' imprisonment upon conviction.
The 34-year-old suspect stands accused of repeatedly raping his stepdaughter since June 2017 in their 1.5-by-2-meter rented room when his wife was not around. The girl reportedly said the man always threatened to kill her if she dared to tell her mother.
The case added to a long list of sexual violence committed by people against their own family members. The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) reported this year that it had received 1,071 reports of rape at the hands of family members throughout 2018. The commission said fathers and uncles made up the highest number of perpetrators.
The chief of the South Jakarta Police’s Women and Children’s Protection (PPA) Unit, Adj. Comr. Nunu Suparmi, said the PPA unit had referred the victim to the Jakarta Integrated Women and Children’s Service Center (P2TP2A) for psychological and legal assistance.
