INDONESIA is fertile ground for the growth of child pornography. A network of this crime that targets children was uncovered recently being controlled by a man called Muhammad Shobur from inside jail. His network extended overseas and had been exploiting victims for years. Parents should not rely on the state to prevent this crime.

The uncovering of the child pornography network at the end of February began with information from the Violent Crimes Against Children International Task Force of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which found a huge amount of pornographic content, some of featuring children aged between 7 and 16 years old from Indonesia. This content was distributed around a number of nations using the Telegram app. From this information, Indonesian National Police (Polri) arrested a number of perpetrators. Without this information from overseas, it is probable that these producers of child pornography would have continued operating for years.

The National Police actually has the ability to detect this type of network. With its sophisticated equipment, it is easy to uncover cases of child pornography. Infiltrating Telegram groups, whose members only pay a few tens of thousands of rupiah to join, is not difficult. This is the usual method of uncovering terrorist networks. But with child pornography, which is an extraordinary crime, the police appeared to have been caught napping and only woke up after receiving a nudge from the United States.

The lack of attention paid by law enforcers to the crime of child pornography means that perpetrators can continue to produce and spread content. In 2022, Indonesia was the fifth largest producer of child pornography with 1.87 million files. The value of these transactions, as discovered by the Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK), was Rp114.26 billion. The true figure including undetected content is believed to be even higher.

Producers of child pornography could be anywhere and could target anyone. From inside jail, Muhammad Shobur was able to instruct members of his network by telephone to continue producing content. This is a result of the shambolic management of jails in Indonesia, a problem that the government has never been able to resolve. As well as the use of mobile phones, narcotics can be produced and then distributed outside jail.

Given this state of affairs, the state cannot no longer be fully trusted to prevent the distribution of child pornography. The key to tackling this problem is with parents, who must pay close attention to the activities of their children. They must warn their children not to believe strangers. Shobur’s network, for example, targeted children active in online gaming communities on social media like Facebook. Schools must also keep an eye on children.

Parents must not underestimate the reach of this crime that targets their children. They must put strict limits on their children’s access to the Internet according to their age in order to keep them out of the reaches of child pornographers. And parents must communicate with schools so that their children’s activities can be more closely monitored. Without early prevention, these predators will find it easy to prey on our children.