13 daycare staff arrested in Indonesian child abuse scandal

YOGYAKARTA – Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of abuse against small children at a daycare centre were widely circulated, sparking outrage in the country.

Police on April 24 raided Little Aresha, a daycare centre in Yogyakarta on Java island after a former employee lodged a report.

In CCTV footage circulating on social media, children, most under the age of two, are seen lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags.

The police, who said the footage is authentic, also found 20 kids crammed into a room just 3m by 3m.

City police chief Eva Guna Pandia speaking to reporters in Yogyakarta on April 27, said: “So far, 13 people have been named suspects.” She added that they have been arrested.

Those in custody include 11 child carers, as well as the headmaster and the head of the foundation that ran the centre.

They will face a rash of charges, including child neglect. Other charges may be added as the investigation unfolds.

Mr Pandia said the suspects told police that they tied up some of the kids to prevent them from disturbing the others.

They claimed that the centre was understaffed, with not enough people to bathe and dress the children, said Yogyakarta detective Riski Adrian.

The daycare centre accommodated about 100 children, more than half of whom are believed to have been ill-treated, said the police.

Parent Noorman Windarto, 42, said he was shocked when he received a phone call from a fellow parent on April 24, urging him to pick up his two-year-old son.

He later learnt from the police that the boy, who had been attending the centre since he was three months old, was among those to have been tied up.

Mr Noorman, a civil servant, said: “My heart was shattered. My wife cried. Most of the caregivers were women, and their body language was tender. They were so soft-spoken, and appeared to be religious.”

He added that he paid about 1.1 million rupiah (S$81) – half the minimum wage in Yogyakarta – for each of his two children to attend the centre.

His oldest child, a daughter now six years old, stopped going recently.

She sometimes came home with bruises that the daycare centre said she must have got elsewhere, while playing, said Mr Noorman.

His son was repeatedly hospitalised with pneumonia, which the father now suspects may have had something to do with him being made to sleep on a cold floor without clothes.

“I am very angry, furious,” Mr Noorman said. “They must be punished as severely as possible.”

Under Indonesia’s child protection law, the suspects face up to five years’ jail and a 100 million rupiah fine. AFP