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At least three children treated for sex abuse at Malacca Hospital each week
Published:  Nov 14, 2016 7:01 PM
Updated: 11:07 AM

At least three children would turn up at Malacca Hospital each week to seek treatment for sexual abuse, the gynaecologist Dr Maimunah Fadzil reportedly said.

According to the New Straits Times today, the gynaecologist at the hospital said this number usually rises during school holidays and festive periods, when children spend more time at home.

She reportedly attributed this is due to lack of close parental supervision, and lack of options for healthy past times. In addition, she claimed that there is a trend where children are also taking part in the immoral activities of the adults around them.

“Once they are left at home without close parental supervision, they gain access (or are exposed to, certain behaviours), and do not understand the gravity of such activities, especially surfing explicit web sites, before they become addicted […]

“Children will try to extend the knowledge they gather on their own into physical contact, either as doer or stimulator,” she was quoted as saying.

The report said she was speaking on Saturday at the Paedophilia, Pornography and Cyber Crime seminar, which was organised by Pertubuhan Ikram Malaysia (Ikram) in Malacca.

Maimunah reportedly said children under the age of 13 who are reclusive or have problems socialising are particularly at risk of sexual abuse.

The problem is exacerbated when parents refuse to report such cases to the authorities to maintain ‘domestic harmony’.

Earlier today, Reuters reported that most complaints of child sexual abuse in Malaysia do not result in a conviction.

Citing police data, it said there had been 12,987 cases of child sexual abuse between January 2012 to July this year. Of these, charges were filed for 2,189 cases, but this resulted in only 140 convictions.

The report said officials and child welfare groups attributed the lack of convictions to weak police and child protection laws, which in turn lead to inadequate investigations and a low conviction rate.

Many cases also go unreported due to taboos surrounding child sexual abuse and mistrust of authorities, the report said.

The police meanwhile reportedly blamed the rules regarding court evidence, which give little weight to the children’s testimony.

The police’s Sexual, Women and Children Investigation Division chief Ong Chin Lan also reportedly told Reuters that the police lacked the expertise to monitor activities on an hidden portion of the internet known as the ‘dark web’, where some online paedophile groups operate and share child sexual abuse material.

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