LEGAL PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AND WOMEN VICTIMS OF CRIME IN BALI

Cases of violence against children are increasingly rampant in Bali. Children must receive legal protection as regulated in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

For this reason, we, the team of the True Youth Legal Aid Institute (LBH PS) in Bali, have provided many legal protections for children and women as victims of crime by providing legal assistance both in the Police, the Prosecutor’s Office and up to the Court.

As we know that Indonesia has enacted Law Number 23 of 2002 concerning Child Protection which has the following principles:

1. non-discrimination;
2. the best interests of the child;
3. the right to life, survival and development; and
4. respect for the opinion of the child.

Article 80 paragraph 1 of the Child Protection Law regulates strict sanctions against “Everyone who commits cruelty, violence or threats of violence, or abuse of children, shall be punished with imprisonment for a maximum of 3 (three) years and 6 (six) months and/or or a maximum fine of Rp. 72,000,000.00 (seventy-two million rupiah)”.

Obscenity and rape of children are also explicitly regulated in Article 81 paragraph 1 of the Child Protection Law which reads “Anyone who intentionally commits violence or threats of violence forces a child to have intercourse with him or with other people, shall be punished with imprisonment for a maximum of 15 (five) years. fifteen) years and a minimum of 3 (three) years and a maximum fine of Rp. 300,000,000.00 (three hundred million rupiah) and a minimum of Rp. 60,000,000.00 (sixty million rupiah).”

Our experience with the team of the True Youth Legal Aid Institute (LBH PS) in assisting child victims of crime is the lack of information from the family and there are indications that the family is covering up cases that befell their children.

We, the team of the True Youth Legal Aid Institute (LBH PS) provide legal assistance to children and women who are victims of crime, by first approaching the victims and their families.

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Cases of child violence and rape and sexual abuse of girls are very common in Bali. Both the perpetrators are adults and are still in the age category of children, where the majority are children who are victims of crimes of rape/obscenity (moral offenses) which are mostly carried out by the closest people to the child, namely the family, neighbors, friends on social media.

Not infrequently these events result in pregnancy, of course this will damage the future of the child and will affect the psychology of the child when the child who is the victim of the crime gives birth to a child from the crime of the perpetrators.

According to our experience, the team of the True Youth Legal Aid Institute (LBH PS), the cause of the rise of cases of violence against children and women in Bali is the lack of communication between victims and their families, lack of care and attention from their closest family, friends and the indifference of the surrounding community, apart from poverty, the influence of free sex lifestyle, internet and social media advancements that lead to negative things such as free sex, abortion, narcotics, and other child delinquency.

In Bali there is also rampant trafficking of children and women to become commercial sex workers (CSWs), where children are used as waiters for cafes, spas and nightclubs, with the job task of accompanying café visitors to drink alcohol and often being asked to accompany café visitors to have free sex.

Physical violence against children also occurs there, even though sometimes they give money in return so that the case is not revealed, but our team from the True Youth Legal Aid Institute (LBH PS) always investigates if there are such indications.