Dealing with pornography and protecting children.

Dr Risman Musa, an expert on multi-cultural affairs at the Co-ordinating Ministry of the People’s Welfare, says the pornography industry in Indonesia is well organised because pornography was such a profitable business to be in.

Risman Musa.

Speaking at a meeting of the Anti-Pornography & Indecency Movement in Bandarlampung on May 24th Musa said the pornography industry’s attack on Indonesian society, particularly on its children, had to be challenged by parents, and:

What is very important is the role of religion.

He stressed the need for clear rules and regulations to prevent porn being available to children in order to save the young generation.

Tatti Elmir of the Save the Children Alliance then spoke saying that the mass media were most responsible in influencing children towards “pornoaksi”, or indecent or free behaviour like free sex.

There are television programs and films about giving up one’s virginity and having sex which are screened when families gather together, like at 8.00 in the evening.

Besides television, comic books, handphones, dvd’s and vcd’s, newspapers, and magazines were most commonly used to spread pornography in Indonesia, she said.

In America, she said, the porn business generated more money than all the combined salaries of professional footballers and basketball and baseball players, as well as revenues from basketball team franchises. The American porn industry was more valuable than the combined worths of ABC, CBS and NBC, she said. Globally porn netted $57 billion per year with child pornography, she went on, accounting for $3 billion of this.

On the internet the biggest users of porn sites were 12 to 17 year olds, Tatti said.

What was to be done? Tatti recommended improving communication within families and giving children confidence in themselves by involving them in decision making. Further, children should be taught to respect themselves and know how to distinguish between the different types of close contact or touching, and how to react to them.

Parents should also know where their children were at all times, and who they were with, – the most dangerous people were those who were known to the child, or close to him/her. antara