U-Reporters speak out on violence against children

By Awis Mranani, UNICEF Indonesia Innovation Lab

Millions of Indonesian youth are affected by violence. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2014

The results are in. UNICEF has just completed its first major survey using the U-Report Indonesia polling system. Young people across the country were asked for their views on the taboo subject of violence against children.

More than 4,000 participants, or U-Reporters, were involved in the Twitter-based survey. Questions focused on the government’s previous strategy on violence against children and findings will now be used to provide input to the government’s updated National Strategy on Violence against Children for 2015-2019.

The answers offered by Indonesian youth are enlightening. They stressed that the government needs to be much more strategic in keeping children safe from violence. This could be through increased public awareness and education activities (particularly regarding legislation and policies) and facilitating more community involvement on the topic, especially from youth.

Quantitatively, the survey found that over the last three years, most young people aged 13-24 years who had become victims of violence did not receive any form of counselling and 15 percent had no idea where to report violence if they witness it or experience it themselves.

Indonesia launches Study on Digital Safety

"Children may be exposed to similar risks like in the physical world when they are surfing the internet, such as violence and abuse, including sexual exploitation, and trafficking." says UNICEF Indonesia Representative Angela Kearney.
© UNICEFIndonesia/2014/Klavert

As Indonesia experiences a rapid increase in the number of children and young people accessing the internet through mobile devices, the Government in Jakarta is collaborating with UNICEF to ensure that children can make best use of the internet while at the same minimizing the protection risks they may encounter during their online journey.

A key step in this process has been the conclusion of a study on “Digital Citizenship and Safety among Children and Adolescents in Indonesia”, whose results UNICEF and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology launched on 18 February in Jakarta.  The study was commissioned by UNICEF as part of its multi-country project on Digital Citizenship and Safety. It covers the age group 10 to 19 years, a huge population of 43.5 million children and adolescents.