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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.