Online gambling detrimental to families: BKKBN

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Head of the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) Hasto Wardoyo cautioned of the significant negative implications of online gambling such as conflicts in families.

"Online gambling has implications for families. The current high number of (cases of) divorce is due to small fights that last for a long time and gambling. I am sure it (gambling) causes fights in the family," Wardoyo noted in an official statement here on Thursday.

Wardoyo pointed out that more men than women are affected by internet gambling, and if those men have families, then their inability to reason leads to protracted arguments that ultimately result in divorce.

"Those who gamble are mostly men, those being the household heads or boys who become toxic in the family," he stated.

Based on a Statistics Indonesia (BPS) report, some 516 thousand divorce cases were recorded in 2023. Hence, to this end, he affirmed that the BKKBN is running a family development program to proffer a sense of peace, independence, and happiness to families.

"We have the iBangga (Family Development Index), which assesses indicators of detrimental behaviors, such as gambling and so on," he remarked.

Earlier, BKKBN's Deputy for Family Prosperity and Empowerment, Nopian Andusti, stated that the family is the smallest social system that can supervise and keep its members safe to prevent them from getting involved in online gambling.

"The family is the nearest social system to us. Fostering, educating, and guiding start from the family. Families must always remind their members not to veer towards negative actions, one of which is online gambling," Andusti emphasized.

He stressed that online gambling is also detrimental to the family in addition to harming the gamblers themselves.

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