12-year-old girl selling explicit pictures online raises concerns for Malaysia authorities: Home Minister
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The girl, who roped in four friends to run the site, made more money every month than both her parents combined.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
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A 12-year-old girl in Malaysia set up a website to sell sexually explicit content and made more money every month than both her parents combined, said Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
As a result, the girl dropped out of school because “she no longer saw any reason to continue her studies”, he said in Parliament on Aug 19.
She roped in four friends to run the site. They also have a WhatsApp group with 762 members who take sexually explicit pictures of themselves to sell to interested parties online, said Datuk Seri Saifuddin.
The group, identified as Geng Budak Sekolah (School Kids Gang), was dismantled in 2025 by the police, with the help of other government agencies, he added. It is not clear if adults were in the WhatsApp group.
Mr Saifuddin expressed concerns over the alleged production and sale of sexual content involving minors, and also acknowledged the complexities in handling children involved in criminal activities, as they are subjected to different legal frameworks.
For example, minors cannot be tried in an open court, he said.
“So how do we take action? Our laws are varied. If we want to take action against these people, Suhakam will say they are just children,” he said, referring to Malaysia’s human rights commission. The Child Act 2001 says a “child” is a person who is below the age of 18.
“And then there is a question of their future. So when we encounter cases like these, enforcement must be approached carefully, and we have to get inputs from various agencies,” he added.
These include the Education, Communications, and Women, Family and Community Development ministries, he said.
