KUALA LUMPUR: CHILDREN, including those at the most vulnerable age, are becoming victims of abuse.
Police are working around the clock to remove them from the hands of abusive individuals, including guardians and parents. They want those who are aware of such abuse, but failed to report them, to be held accountable.
Bukit Aman’s Sexual, Women and Child Investigation Division is set on using a relatively new legal provision (established in 2016 following amendments to the Child Act) to hold just about anyone answerable if they turn a blind eye to such cases.
Its principal assistant director, Assistant Commissioner Jenny Ong Chin Lan, said investigations would zero in on those found to have knowledge of children being abused.
She said leads into this side of the probe would be established through interviews with, among others, the victims, their parents, suspected abusers and other witnesses.
Medical practitioners who had attended to the abused child before and failed to report signs of abuse would also be held accountable, as they were legally bound to report their suspicions, as spelt out under Section 27 of the Child Act, she said.
Before the Child Act was amended two years ago, it had underlined the legal requirement for medical practitioners and family members, as well as caregivers, to report suspected abuse.
“This means that anyone, including neighbours or even strangers to the child but who were privy to information that there had been abuse but chose to ignore it, could be looking at serious legal repercussions,” she said.
If they are guilty of this crime of looking the other way, they could be slapped with a maximum fine of RM5,000 or not more than two years’ imprisonment, or both.
Ong told the New Sunday Times that the use of the law was necessary due to the poor participation of the public in stopping or preventing child abuse.
“Our community has yet to reach that level of civic consciousness.
“Neighbours who hear constant cries from the child next door or spot suspicious bruises on children in their neighbourhood should raise their suspicions with the authorities and intervene.
“I am asking the public to care and this is an instance where you should mind other people’s business,” she said, adding that they should not be worried about lodging a report even if it was based on suspicions.
Ong said police had established the fact that most victims of child abuse were under 7 and that they became “punching bags” to those caring for them.
“To them, children are the easiest targets. We have a lot of cases where mothers who were upset with their husband, vented out their anger on their children,” she said, adding that it was heartbreaking that most perpetrators were the victims’ parents and caregivers (see graphics).
She said last year saw a 22 per cent increase in child abuse cases from the year before. Between 2014 and February, police had investigated 1,498 of such cases, including those resulting in death.
Her division is disturbed by the fact that there were 63 cases of young children and infants being abused in the first two months of this year alone.
“While nothing can justify these abuse cases, we are disturbed by the fact that these children did nothing to trigger the abusers’ anger that could suggest that they were cases of ‘disciplining having gone too far’,” Ong said, adding that this was so in almost 80 per cent of cases reported in the last five years.
She said data gathered by her division showed that there was an increase in the number of child abuse cases, with 429 children reported to have been abused last year compared with 349 cases in 2016.
Almost half (209) of the number involved those aged between 1 and 7, while another 125 cases involved children aged above 7.
She, however, said the number reported to the police could be far below the actual number of cases, as some would have lodged reports with the Welfare Department.
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