The Criminal Law Policy Toward Children as Active Offenders in Human Trafficking within the Reform of a Just Indonesian Criminal Law System

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-531-7_48How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Child Offender’s; Human trafficking; Juvenile; Prostitution

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the legal status of children as active offenders in human trafficking crimes, particularly in cases of prostitution, and to examine the effectiveness of the current criminal policy applied within Indonesia juvenile justice system. The research uses a normative juridical method with statutory, conceptual, and case approaches, focusing on the provisions of Law No. 11 of 2012 on the Juvenile Criminal Justice System and Law No. 21 of 2007 on the Eradication of Human Trafficking Crimes. The results indicate that applying the ultimum remedium principle to child offenders in human trafficking cases has not been fully effective in creating deterrence and often causes disparities in justice for victims. The existing penal policies tend to be too lenient, reducing the preventive function of criminal law. Therefore, a legal reform is needed to position children as responsible legal subjects through a proportional, rehabilitative, and educational approach, while still imposing clear limits on their active involvement in organized crime. This study suggests that Indonesia should reform its juvenile criminal policy by integrating repressive and restorative approaches, ensuring a balanced realization of justice, legal certainty, and child protection within the national criminal justice system.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Alendra Alendra
AU  - Tommy Leonard
AU  - Said Rizal
AU  - Elvira F. Pakpahan
AU  - Roswita Sitompul
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/01/03
TI  - The Criminal Law Policy Toward Children as Active Offenders in Human Trafficking within the Reform of a Just Indonesian Criminal Law System
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Forum on Psychology, Law, and Education (IFPLE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 467
EP  - 488
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-531-7_48
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-531-7_48
ID  - Alendra2026
ER  -