Piloting the Neighbourhood Method to Gather Information on the Prevalence of Child Protection Concerns in Indonesia

Development of programmes, plans and implementation of child protection services are dependent
upon the availability and use of relevant child protection and social welfare data. While the
Government of Indonesia and its partners have made impressive progress in developing many of
aspects of the legal framework and service delivery components of a child protection system, the
data collection and analysis component has lagged behind, and there is an absence of data on the
prevalence of physical and sexual violence against children in Indonesia. To address this gap, UNICEF’s Child Protection Unit, the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kementerian Sosial, KEMENSOS), the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), and the Center on Child Protection at the University of Indonesia conducted a prevalence study in the Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) province to measure the incidence of physical and sexual violence against women and children.This study found that most of the children respondents reported on had experienced some form of violence in the previous 18 months – in 90% of cases this was corporal punishment, and in 10% this was deemed to be excessive or age-inappropriate violence. A minority of children (13%) experienced violence from multiple perpetrators. These children were equally likely to be boys or girls, but children aged 6-10 experienced more incidents of violence than did other age groups.