Rizal Bomantama, Jakarta – Indonesian Child Protection Agency (KPAI) Commissioner for Education Affairs, Retno Listyarti, has revealed that the cases of sexual violence in schools in 2019 were dominated by teachers and school principles.
Listyarti said that in 2019 the KPAI recorded nine cases of sexual violence at primary schools (SD) and four cases in junior high schools (SMP).
“The perpetrators of sexual violence in formal education or schools are dominated by teachers and school principles. Between January and July 2019 we found cases nine of sexual violence in SD and four at SMP”, said Listyarti during a discussion titled Education Homework on Children’s Day at the Bakoel coffee shop in Cikini, Menteng, Central Jakarta on Saturday July 20.
“Out of these cases we also found that the perpetrators were honorary teachers, sports teachers, religious teachers, arts and culture, IPS [social studies] teachers, computer teachers and school principles. The largest number of cases were committed by sports and religious teachers”, she added.
Listyarti explained that the out of the 13 cases of sexual violence nine were committed against female students and four against male students. “Female as well as male children both fell victim [to abuse]”, she said.
Listyarti is concerned because under the Child Protection Law teachers and school principles should act as the parents and protectors for the children being educated.
She also explained that the modus operandi used by teachers and school principles ranged from inviting students to watch pornographic videos to giving them food and threatening to give them bad marks if they refused to participate.
Listyarti rejected the justification given by perpetrators who claim that the sexual violence was with mutual consent.
“There’s no such term as mutual consent in the physical relationship between [adults and] children under the age 18, all of it is categorised as sexual violence and is a crime”, she said in conclusion.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “ KPAI: Kekerasan Seksual di Sekolah Didominasi Guru dan Kepala Sekolah”.]
