Jakarta, March 22 (Antara) - Child sexual abuse is one of the problems often faced by Indonesia, and the government is committed to tackling the menace by imposing severe punishment, such as castration, on pedophiles involved in such crimes.
Despite the government imposing severe punishment, cases of sexual abuse against children continue to occur. Perpetrators of child abuse are taking advantage of the advancements in information technology to develop their networks.
The Jakarta Police, for instance, had successfully unearthed a pedophile network operating under the account name "Official Candy's Group" on Facebook and arrested its administrators on Tuesday, last week (Mar 14).
According to the police, the Official Candy's Group network had connections to 11 similar groups that perpetrated crimes against children in several countries. Jakarta Police Head Insp. Gen. Mochammad Iriawan stated at a press conference that the Jakarta Police's Cyber Crime Sub-directorate had arrested four administrators of the group.
Hence, the Jakarta Police has warned that Indonesia should guard against being targeted by pedophiles who commit sexual violence against children.
"Indonesia is still a haven for child sex abuse perpetrators or pedophiles," Adj. Sr Comr Roberto Pasaribu, chief of the Jakarta Police's Cyber Crime Sub-directorate of the Special Crime Investigation Department, remarked in Jakarta last Wednesday.
He said the disclosure of the online pedophilic network under the group's account name Official Candy's Group reflected that Indonesia had become a target of child sex abuse perpetrators.
Pasaribu said the administrators of the group on Facebook were linked to 11 other groups involved in sexual violence against children in several countries, with members reaching several thousand. Jakarta Police Chief Mochammad Iriawan noted that the videos and pictures contained child porn content.
He estimated that the group had seven thousand active members. The administrators actively recruited new members and removed the inactive ones or those who did not upload child sex videos. Based on the investigation, the police found that the page had approximately 500 videos and 100 pictures containing child pornography.
The people who uploaded material would have Rp15 thousand transferred to their PayPal accounts for each click on their video links.
The police are still investigating whether the pictures came from Asia or other countries. To this end, the Jakarta Police is cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down the pedophilic group believed to have links with international networks.
The Jakarta Police had earlier revealed prostitution practices involving underage children or pedophilia carried out online through the social media platform Facebook under the account Official Candy's Group.
The police arrested four administrators identified as MBU alias Wawan alias Snorlax aged 25, DS alias Illu Inaya alias Alicexandria aged 27, SHDW alias Siha Dwirti aged 16, and DF alias T-Day aged 17.
Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa lauded the success of the Jakarta police in arresting four administrators of the online pedophilic operations of the Official Candy's group on Facebook.
The minister said that two of the administrators were still youngsters, so the social affairs ministry will offer counseling to them.
"The counseling team will comprise social workers, medical personnel, and psychologists. In all, there are 18 of them. They are in charge of providing counseling, social advocacy, rehabilitation, and assisting them to change their outlook," the minister said in a written statement.
In the meantime, the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) has urged Facebook, as a social media platform, to also take responsibility for the presence of Official Candy's pedophile group's content on its servers.
Having content that is categorically pornographic and showing acts of sexual harassment against children, the group has recently come under the spotlight and was reported to the police. It was believed to serve as a medium of information for pedophiles.
KPAI Chairman Asrorun Niam stated in Jakarta on Tuesday that Facebook cannot abdicate its responsibility, as the content of the Official Candy's Group was present on its platform. It should explain who its service users are and what the service is.
"It (Facebook) must have internal controls in place to ensure that it is free from content that is against the law," Niam noted.
If negative content still exists and continues to circulate, there is a possibility that the social media platform has intentionally ignored such content.
"If the social media platform deliberately ignores such negative content, it will face legal consequences. Hence, we will soon summon Facebook to hold a discussion on child protection," he stated.
This is not the first time that negative content is being circulated on social media platforms, such as Facebook. Recently, a case came to light in which Facebook was used to run a child trafficking racket for prostitution purposes.(A014/INE)EDITED BY INE
(T.A014/B/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 22-03-2017 14:45:2 |
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