PASIR MAS: The authorities have detected an increase in cases of online sexual exploitation of children, particularly child pornography.
Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff said the ministry was told that more than 100,000 IP addresses registered in Malaysia were found to have shared child pornography.
"Based on police records between 2017 and last month, more than 100,000 Malaysian-registered IP addresses were found to have shared child porn.
"This marks an unhealthy development as it could lead to (deviant) sexual behaviour which could result in crimes such as rape."
Siti Zailah, who is Rantau Panjang member of parliament, was speaking at the launch of a campaign to combat online sexual crimes against children here today.
She said 1,055 child abuse cases were recorded by the Welfare Department between January and June this year.
Of the total, 578 cases involve physical abuse, 417 cases involve sexual abuse and 60 cases involve emotional abuse.
"Of the 1,055 cases, 706 victims involve girls and the rest are boys."
She said police statistics showed that 1,348 sexual abuse cases involving children were recorded in the first six months of this year.
"Rape made up the most cases reported to police nationwide at 641 cases, followed by molest at 438 cases, incest at 127 cases, gang rape at 47 cases and carnal intercourse against the order of nature at 95 cases."
She said the government had taken measures to address child abuse, including setting up a social media special action committee and launching safety campaigns.
"At the ministry level, we have set up a special action integrated management team to handle children's issue, led by our minister.
"We also set up the 15999 Talian Kasih to enable the public to channel information on child abuse to us."
She said the ministry had appointed 299 welfare protection officers to handle the issue.