Legal Protection for Child Victims of Criminal Offenses Under the National Criminal Code of Indonesia and International Law

Abstract

Criminal offenses against children constitute a serious violation of human rights that degrades human dignity, particularly against children as a vulnerable group. The enactment of the National Criminal Code of Indonesia (Law No. 1 of 2023) has introduced a new paradigm based on a balance between the protection of perpetrators and victims, with a vision of corrective, restorative, and rehabilitative justice. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze legal protections for child victims of criminal offenses under the National Criminal Code and international law. This study employs a normative legal approach with a descriptive-analytical research design. The research was conducted through a literature review using primary, secondary, and tertiary legal sources, which were analyzed using qualitative descriptive methods. The results of the study indicate that legal protection for child victims of criminal offenses is regulated in international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography (2000), the Palermo Protocol to the Conventio on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Guidelines on Justice for Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime (2005). Meanwhile, under the National Criminal Code, victims are granted Stronger legal protections include, among other things, the expansion of sexual violence offenses, harsher penalties when the victim is a child, clearer rights to restitution, more explicit protection for child victims, and a restorative justice approach consistent with the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and developments in modern victimology.