YOGYAKARTA - Psychological trauma in children who are victims of sexual harassment is difficult to be removed from the memory of the victims. Moreover, if the perpetrators still exist and live not far from the children's environment. "There is the fear because the perpetrator is someone close, lives next door or in the same house. Therefore, the perpetrators should be out of the children’s environment in order to not cause trauma," a psychologist, Prof. Dr. Endang Ekowarni, said in a discussion of scientific studies on children development at University Club on Tuesday (28/6).
The professor of Faculty of Psychology added that it is not easy for children to release the trauma as most perpetrators are still in the children's environment. So, the trauma in the memory goes along the character development of the children. "The thinking in the brain will be an obsession so that behaviour arises due to erotic imagination," she said.
Ekowarni compared those who never drink wine, once they try it, they will re-try it even if it it does not taste good. "It is very possible that when the children grow as teenagers or adults they will retry the unpleasant experience though with different people," she explained.
Surprisingly, the judge or prosecutor in court has not fully trusted the confession of children who are victims of sexual harassment. Not infrequently in every trial, the judge presented a psychologist to give an opinion on the confession. "In the case of sexual harassment, most children never lie even if in the visum the case is often reported as referring to the genitals or the children suffer wounds caused by blunt force trauma," she said.
According to Ekowarni, children are lying for specific things on something that they do not like, for example, when they are asked if they have eaten, had a shower, or have homework. "But for victims of sexual harassment, they would not be lying because their sexual organs are still experiencing aches and pains," she said.
To know more about the psychology of children development, Ekowarni advised law enforcement officers to read more books on children development. The reason is there are many children victims who have not received optimal protection. "Children’s activity is to play, but the reality in Indonesia, they are forced to work and are sold as commodity," she concluded.