Kominfo Invites All Parties To Protect Indonesian Children From Digital Violence

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JAKARTA - The development of information technology brings great challenges to the growth and development of Indonesian children.

The rise of cases of violence, including sexual violence against children, is undeniable because of the influence of pornographic content on social media.

This was conveyed by the Director of Political, Legal and Security Information and Communication, Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Bambang Gunawan, in his remarks at the Digital (Firtual) Legal Literacy and Human Rights Forum with the theme "Early Protection: Preventing the Dangers of Negative Content and Digital Violence in Children" in Surabaya, Thursday 28 July.

"A variety of negative content, such as pornographic content and online gambling, has the potential to enter the lives of children and adolescents because of their high activity in cyberspace," he explained.

According to him, by looking at the high activity of children and adolescents in cyberspace, it takes commitment and cooperation from all parties to protect Indonesian children.

“One of the significant impacts of negative content, such as pornography, is addiction and sexual violence against children. This is dangerous and has a long-term impact if there is no serious handling and commitment from various parties," he said.

“In the past three years, state protection related to pornographic content through restrictions on pornographic keywords in cyberspace has helped the prevention process a little compared to the situation in five years ago. However, these contents do not just disappear," he continued.

The current condition brings its own challenges for parents in dealing with the use of the internet by their children.

Therefore, he hopes that this event can increase public awareness of the potential for violence against children in the digital world and its prevention efforts.

Resource persons who attended the event included the Head of the Legal and Cooperation Team, Directorate General of Information and Communications Applications, Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Josua Sitompul, Young Planner at the Assistant Deputy for Special Protection of Children from Violence, Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (Kemen PPPA) , Fitra Andika Sugiyono, Child Psychologist, Yessyca Diana Gabrielle, and Public Figure, Meisya Siregar.

Present online, Josua Sitompul stated that protecting children in cyberspace requires a multi-stakeholder and multi-dimensional approach, as well as a heuristic approach.

"Talking about multi-stakeholder means that we not only invite the national government but also governments from other countries, business actors as those who provide services, as well as the community and academics. If we talk about multi-dimensional, then it is not only about law, but also social culture, education, and economy," he explained.

While the heuristic approach is based on information, experience, and facts that have been owned or collected, as a basis for making policies, taking approaches, and building patterns in child protection.

"The partiality of what we have can be used as a method of providing protection. Although we do not make a comprehensive policy at this time, we have a goal, namely to build a progressive child protection system," he said.

He also argues that a heuristic approach can be more realistic and reasonable in providing protection for children against violence and also the possible negative or bad impacts of the internet.

In the next session, Fitra Andika Sugiyono as the Young Planner of the Ministry of PPPA revealed that in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Article 17 concerning the Rights of the Child to Adequate Information, every child can access information and materials from various sources, one of which is online.

"This child-friendly information is important because it builds children's intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social intelligence," he explained.

This, according to him, has become the duty of the state, one of which is to ensure that children can access information from various sources with the aim of improving the welfare, spiritual, moral, and physical and mental health of children.

He also said that the PPA Ministry had collaborated with ECPAT Indonesia and Facebook Indonesia in establishing a program to empower children and young people to become peer educators in promoting digital literacy and child safety in the online realm.

On the same occasion, Child Psychologist, Yessyca Diana Gabrielle, revealed that if you look at the current conditions there are six emergency conditions for children, namely child violence emergency, pedophile or sexual violence emergency, pornography emergency, drug emergency, national emergency and intolerance, and child marriage emergency. .

In the current era of content, according to him, it can have a bad impact. Exposure to negative content that will continuously languish in memory and can affect and confuse the mindset, not only for children but also for adults.

"This can shift the workings of the mind, which at first we thought was taboo, ugly, negative, shifted into something ordinary and even fun. What happens is this mind will slowly interpret the strange, odd, unusual and distorted into something that reasonable, doable, and fun," he explained.

According to him, what makes the audience and content creators drown in the sensation, and continue to seek, or create new ideas that are more bizarre and odd.

Content like this will eventually become toxic and damage human mental health.

Meanwhile, Meisya Siregar as Public Figure said, if the impact of the development of information and communication technology on children's growth and development is a challenge that until now cannot be controlled 100 percent.

As a parent, he revealed that this is an important issue how the presence of social media and the internet makes children have two possibilities that can happen.

On the one hand, it can make children smart, intelligent, and creative, or it could be the other way around.

“In my opinion, the internet and the use of these gadgets are like two sides of a knife, which can be a benefit or a bad thing. The impact can be fatal if we as parents are not able to monitor, make agreements, direct, or make commitments with our children,” he said.

This Firtual event aims to increase public understanding of the potential for violence against children in cyberspace, as well as encourage community participation to protect and prevent potential violence against children in cyberspace.

In addition to providing material, the event was also enlivened by games with prizes that all participants could participate in.

Held hybridly (offline and online) at Vasa Hotel Surabaya, and can be watched live through the Zoom Meeting application and the YouTube channel of the Directorate General of IKP Kominfo.