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Chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Bambang Soesatyo. ANTARA/Special

Chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Bambang Soesatyo highlighted the urgency for Indonesian people to make a commitment and build collective awareness that child protection is everyone’s responsibility.

Hence, the government must be present and take sides with children, while parents must become role models, and the society must offer support to children, Soesatyo noted in his remarks during a function to observe National Children's Day at the Parliament complex in Jakarta on Thursday.

"It is our shared responsibility to guard and protect our children so that their rights and nature can be guaranteed and guarded," the MPR chairman noted in a statement here on Friday.

Families and the surrounding community must ensure that children feel safe, physically, and psychologically, he emphasized.

Soesatyo noted that child protection was in accordance with the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia in its Article 28B paragraph (2) which stipulates that "Every child has the right for survival, growth, and development and is entitled to protection from violence and discrimination."

Furthermore, Article 34, paragraph (1), emphasizes that the state is tasked with caring for abandoned children. Child protection has also been regulated in Law No. 23 of 2002 on Child Protection and Law No. 35 of 2014.

However, Soesatyo expressed concern while citing the results of a national survey on Indonesian children in 2018 that showed that two out of three children and teenagers, or 67 percent of them, had experienced emotional, physical, or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Furthermore, the Commission for Protection of Indonesian Children (KPAI) stated that the number of child abuse cases had reached 2,178 in 2011 and continued to increase to 4,885 cases in 2018.

"Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we must be concerned about the increasing number of incidents of violence against children," he stated.

He also cited data on the Online Information System for the Protection of Women and Children (SIMFONI PPA) that showed a total of three thousand cases of violence against children from January 1 to June 19, 2020, which included 852 cases of physical violence, 768 cases of psychological abuse, and 1,848 cases of sexual violence.

The senior politician of Golkar Party called for serious response to prevent violence against children and teenagers.

"Providing sufficient knowledge about protection for our children must be instilled in families, schools, and the society around us," he affirmed. (ANTARA)