"This program aims to shorten the (time taken) for justice seekers, whether they are witnesses or victims, to access the LPSK," LPSK Head Hasto Atmojo Suroyo noted during the Community-Based Witness-Victim Protection Program-Solidarity Expansion virtual event on Thursday.
The witness and victim protection program is formed due to limited number of human resources in LPSK. Currently, the agency only has around 400 employees, he pointed out.
However, the LPSK is tasked with serving people seeking justice across Indonesia. On several occasions, LPSK employees are required to head to locations considered quite difficult to reach physically.
"This limitation in human resources is also hampered by the limited budget provided by the state," he remarked.
According to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) in 2020, over 200 thousand criminal cases were recorded in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, annually, the LPSK can only serve around four thousand people.
Driven by this background, the agency deemed that a new breakthrough is needed in reaching out to or serving people pursuing justice, such as by forming the witness and victim protection program.
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Suroyo expects that the witness and victim protection program can connect victims or witnesses to the LPSK, right from the time when the report is delivered until the case is resolved.
Assistance can only be offered to victims and witnesses until the case is resolved. This is because, on several instances, these people experience trauma after their case is resolved in the court, he noted.
"This is where the victim's and witness' friend comes into the picture to help the victims or their families," he stated.
Lastly, the LPSK expects that the friend of the witness and victim can become the agency's partner in disseminating information on its role and mandate.
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Translator: M Zulfikar, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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