JAKARTA. The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) has acknowledged that it is having difficulty keeping up with online illegal infant trading activities as solid evidence is needed to uncover such crimes.
“The practice of selling babies on the Internet is becoming more rampant and is difficult to stop because there needs to be solid evidence in order to stop the perpetrators,” Komnas PA chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said on Friday as quoted by Antara news agency.
Arist added that his office must familiarize itself and follow the law enforcement mechanism used by the police in recognizing the importance of evidence, witnesses and civilian reports, in order to bring the illegal traders to justice.
“We have handled many online child trading schemes in the past, involving direct trading or adoption, but most of our attempts to stop the trade fail because of the difficulty in securing witnesses and solid evidence,” he added.
Furthermore, Arist explained that online child trading was seen as a new form of criminal activity run by child trafficking syndicates to make their crimes easier. Mechanisms to dismantle the syndicates should be improved, he said.
“More action must be taken by the police to stop these crimes and investigate these [site] owners,” he said.
According to the commission’s reports, numerous online sites have emerged that advertise the sale of infants, who are usually priced Rp 10 million (US$829.3) to Rp 20 million, complete with their birth details and their photographs.
Arist urged the public to help uncover these crimes by serving as witnesses and observers, and by reporting any activities to the police.
