The Urgency of Binding Restitution Enforcement within the Framework of the Child Protection Law

Abstract

Protection of children who become victims of criminal acts is a constitutional mandate requiring the state to restore all physical, psychological, and material losses suffered by victims. Restitution serves as an instrument of restorative justice that guarantees victims the right to receive direct compensation from offenders. However, within the framework of the Child Protection Law and the criminal justice system in Indonesia, the enforcement of restitution often reaches a dead end due to weak normative construction, particularly the existence of substitute imprisonment clauses (subsidiary punishment). This study aims to examine in depth the urgency of implementing binding and coercive restitution enforcement for perpetrators of crimes against children. This research use normative legal research methods with statutory and conceptual approaches, this study finds that restitution is currently still reduced to an additional punishment that can be exchanged for imprisonment, thereby providing financial impunity for offenders. The research recommends legal reconstruction through the absolute abolition of substitute imprisonment provisions for restitution, the mandatory implementation of asset tracing from the investigation stage, and the application of presumptive proof regarding children's losses. This transformation toward binding enforcement is an imperative in realizing substantive justice, breaking the chain of victimization, and guaranteeing the dignified future of child victims of crime.