In a milestone development for its children, Indonesia’s National Strategy on Elimination of Violence against Children is signed by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) through the adoption of the Presidential Regulation 101 of 2022.

In a country where over 85 million people are below the age of 18, and with the existing global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and rising inequality, this strategy is a timely and critical instrument to drive change for children.

The government has based the strategy on the INSPIRE evidence-based strategies. It refers to the results of the 2018 National Survey of Child and Adolescent Life Experiences (SNPHAR), which showed the scale of violence in the country, revealing among other things that 1 in 17 boys and 1 in 11 girls had experienced sexual violence and about 14 percent of boys and girls have experienced indirect psychological violence online through cyberbullying.

The strategy lays out the roadmap and target up to 2024 to deal with existing challenges and strengthen the efforts to prevent and respond to the many forms of violence against children.

Ending violence through INSPIRE 

Indonesia became a Pathfinding country in 2016, making a formal public commitment to end violence against children by joining hands with the End Violence Partnership. Today, it is part of 37 countries that are undertaking national planning and action to protect children in all settings. 

The INSPIRE framework followed by the National Strategy was created by ten agencies with a long history of child protection work, including the End Violence Partnership. It serves as a technical package and guidebook for implementing effective, comprehensive programming to combat violence. It is a set of seven evidence-based strategies for any and all countries and communities working to eliminate violence against children.

Drawing on this, the regulation signed by the President states that the strategy and plans for the elimination of violence against children will consist of:

• provision of policies, implementation of regulations, and law enforcement;

• strengthening of norms and social values to address violence;

• creation of safe environments;

• improving the quality of care and availability of support for parents and caregivers;

• economic empowerment of vulnerable families;

• availability and access to integrated services; and

• life skills, awareness and for increasing children's self-defense capacity

The strategy also lays out the matrices of programmes and responsibilities of relevant Government Ministries, which will outline priorities and funding commitment on the implementation of this plan.

Use End Violence’s interactive Country Dashboard to track milestones and progress from Indonesia and other Pathfinding countries from around the world.

You can read the strategy in Bahasa Indonesia here, and learn more about Pathfinding here. 

Image: © UNICEF/UN0647169/Clark