JIS Head
Begs Media to Respect Victims as Sexual Assault Scandal Widens
Jakarta International School head Tim Carr on Thursday
asked journalists to respect the rights of children. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)
Jakarta. The head of the Jakarta International School
apologized on Thursday for the institution’s early silence in the days after
information emerged about the alleged rape of a kindergarten student at the
hands of janitors in a school bathroom, but excoriated the local media and to a
lesser extent Indonesian officials for their handling of the incident.
“We apologize for our role in that we could have been
more proactive and reactive, appropriately, in sharing information with the
media more openly, but this week we’ve tried to counter that by being very open
with the media, and that’s why I’m here today… we have nothing to hide,” head
of school Tim Carr said at a Jakarta Foreign Correspondent’s Club event at the
Intercontinental Hotel in Central Jakarta on Thursday morning. “I am afraid
that a lot of conclusions were leapt to because we were not getting the JIS
story out there. I also feel like there was an appalling lack of journalistic
integrity during the covering of this event. Facts were not appropriately
checked with us or with any other source, so far as I can tell. A very slanted
view was offered and I think that’s very unfortunate.”
Police on April 14 said that a kindergarten student at
JIS had been raped in March, and reports of a second alleged victim have emerged
in recent days.
The parents of the first alleged victim have filed a
civil action against the school, and Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr.
Rikwanto said that police were investigating the school for negligence.
Police have also said they they are looking into
allegations that an alleged international sex criminal worked
at the school from 1992 until 2002. Carr said on Thursday that he had
discussed the matter with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Two employees of janitorial contractor ISS have been
taken into custody, and police said they had strong evidence tying them to the
crime.
The alleged rape has become the focus of a local media
frenzy that has attracted international attention, drawing far more interest
than most child sexual assault stories in Indonesia, driven in part by JIS’s
reputation as an expensive school favored by diplomats’ families and other
members of the expatriate elite.
Police have also looked into the immigration statuses
of the school’s expatriate staff — although the accused rapists are local
contractors — and the kindergarten faces closure in August if it cannot resolve
a licensing issue that emerged in the wake of the rape investigation (Indonesia
Corruption Watch told the Jakarta Globe that early childhood education programs
in Indonesia commonly
operate without formal permission).
Local media accounts have named the alleged victim and
described the crime in lurid detail, in violation of international reporting
standards. An early Jakarta Globe story, which was later amended, included some
information that could have led to identification of the victim.
“Foreigners in general are highly respected in
Indonesia, so somebody who’s regarded highly and popular, and suddenly this bad
thing happens to them, it’s become the focus of the exposure and the
investigation by government bodies,” child psychologist Seto Mulyadi said. “Any
Westerners and foreigners in general here, you shouldn’t feel attacked by this,
that you are hated. Psychologically, it’s simply that a prestigious institution
has experienced a negative incident.”
Carr said that the coverage, and also some actions on
the part of Indonesian officials, had “rubbed salt in the wounds” at a time of
trauma for the school community.
“We were, from the outset, resolutely trying to
protect the confidentiality of the family and of the child, and that was
absolutely what we were dedicated to, so we were appalled that this was
suddenly covered in the open media, including the name of the child involved…
and that was a travesty, that that violation of this child’s rights occurred,”
Carr said. “Among journalists, an example of that is approaching our students,
outside the walls of our school, and trying to badger them to give interviews.
These are in some cases very young children; taking their photos, to me, that
is a violation of their rights and I would appeal to the media, locally and
internationally, to not engage in anything that would violate their human
rights as well.”
In a tense exchange with Erlinda, the secretary
general of the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI), who also
spoke on a panel at the JFCC event, Carr said that the school was doing
everything in its power to comply with government standards and comply with the
investigation.
“I only met Ibu Erlinda this week,” he said. “I’m
hoping that from here on we will have a very productive and healthy
relationship. I have not always felt that.”
Erlinda defended the actions of reporters who
approached young children outside JIS. The school shut the media out, she said,
which left the reporters no other way to report the story.
“We are very sorry if our steps that have been taken
in our investigation for this child have been conceived as improper by JIS and
that JIS didn’t appreciate or expect us to take these steps,” she said. “What
we did was for the protection of the child. Yesterday we met with the parents
of a second potential victim, a 6-year-old child.”
She went on to reveal the child’s gender and
nationality.
“I am appalled that the gender of the child is being
revealed right now,” Carr said. “This seems to me to be another violation of
the child’s rights. All of this should be treated with the utmost
confidentiality and that absolutely should be protected above all else. We are
in a panel right now about child protection. Cases like these must be
protected…. This is ridiculous.”
The public confrontation added to the perception that
the incident had brought out disparities between Indonesian and Western
responses to sexual assault against children, with Indonesian police and
government agencies making frequent, detailed public statements about the
investigation as the school remained tight-lipped.
“Unfortunately, there is a wrong focus by the local
media in covering the incident at JIS,” Erlinda said. “On behalf of the
government of Indonesia we apologize if we have cornered the foreign community
and make you feel uncomfortable and unsafe in Indonesia. The KPAI is waiting
for the government and also hoping to work together with the government and JIS
and the media to stop these criminals from entering international schools or
local schools — any schools.”
Carr said the community was trying to find a way to
make sense of the events and reach out to affected families.
“As you can image, our parents, on top of the trauma
from the other matter, are further traumatized by this prospect of not having a
school for their young children,” he said, referring the possibility of the
kindergarten’s closure. “The prevailing sentiment [among parents], although
there’s still some lingering anxiety and concern over some of the ways that the
school has managed this, is that they been resoundingly in support of the
school and have made that very clear to us of late, so they will be, hopefully,
some very good ambassadors for us going forward.”
Source : http://www.thejakartaglobe.com
Comment :
This is a heartbreaking
incident, no doubt. In the case of JIS' sexual abuse incident, society,
government, school officials, media were responsible for their failure to
protect the safety and well being of the children entrusted to them. Rather
than taking responsibility of their action or non-action, JIS blamed the
Indonesian media and Indonesian official and the Indonesian media blamed the
"foreigners."
but it seems that Tim
Carr is not blaming the media, just asking them to be sensitive towards the
case, which is understandable. No need to spread false rumours
I feel that Erlinda
from KPAI is being unprofessional and insensitive for revealing any information
on the second victim the way she did. She is supposed to be protecting these
victims, not exposing them. That is disappointing and frankly, a bit dense on
her part.
All in all, despite the
horrible and painful incident at JIS, it was an eye opening for all that child
abuse does exist anywhere. It is time for the Indonesian nation to wake up and
be vigilant in ensuring their children’s safety in all aspects of their life.
