Developing Child and Gender Protection in Lombok

Wahana Visi Indonesia in collaboration with Islamic Relief conducted TOT COH (Channel Of Hope) Child Protection and Gender training and advocacy for religious leaders, community leaders, and other stakeholders. WVI facilitated training and mentoring for religious leaders to assist parents in practicing good parenting for children through a series of COH Child Protection, gender, and Parenting with Love (PDC) trainings. The 4-day training was conducted in Mataram from October 31-November 3, 2023 with 35 participants from North Lombok, East Lombok, West Lombok, Bima, and Mataram City. This activity is an effort to catalyze religious leaders, community leaders, and government to be able to play their vital role to unite and make efforts to protect children and equalize gender so that they can change mindsets, behavior and policies that realize holistic child wellbeing.  

WVI has started a community engagement program in East and North Lombok, especially in the three assisted sub-districts. Based on the results of the research conducted, indications of vulnerability in children were found as follows: 

• 93.98% (234 out of 249) of teenagers aged 12-18 years in North Lombok and 96.8% (241 out of 249) in East Lombok stated that their aspirations and views were not channeled and not taken into consideration in community decision-making. 

• 75.1% (187 out of 249) of teenagers in North Lombok and 71.2% (177 out of 249) in East Lombok reported that they did not have a good relationship with their parents. Even from FGDs conducted with children, it was found that most violence was experienced at home, in an environment that should be a safe place for children. 

• Based on UNICEF data, the prevalence of child marriage in West Nusa Tenggara reached 17.7%, higher than the national average of 14.1%, in 2017. 

Although this figure decreased in 2019 to 16.09%, it is still categorized as a child protection emergency. This problem needs to be addressed more seriously by all parties. The rise of cases of violence against children in various forms is not only the responsibility of the government as their main duty, but also needs to be supported by other parties, including religious leaders who are highly respected and trusted by the community. 

Seeing the great potential of religious leaders, WVI felt the need to collaborate with religious leaders to intervene in overcoming this problem through the Parenting with Love (PDC) project model which contains the Celebrating Families and Positive Parenting modules. Some of the participants gave enthusiastic and meaningful impressions of the training, "We realized that in our role functions we sometimes act as protectors, but more often only as observers. We are determined that after this training, we can become protectors of children and equalize gender. We shall bring changes in our way of thinking and committed to take actions so that children can leave safer and happier," said one of the training participants. 

Author: Anil Dawan (Faith and Development Manager) 

Editor: Mariana Kurniawati (Communication Executive)