Police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare centre went viral, sparking outrage across the nation.
Police last Friday raided Little Aresha, a daycare centre in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee.
CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most under the age of two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags.
The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic.
Police said they also found 20 kids crammed into a room measuring just three by three metres.
“So far, 13 people have been named suspects” and arrested in the case, city police chief Eva Guna Pandia told reporters in Yogyakarta on Monday.
Those in custody include 11 child carers, as well as the headmaster and the head of the foundation that ran the centre.
Pandia said the suspects told police they had tied up some of the kids to prevent them from disturbing others.
They claimed the centre was understaffed, with not enough personnel 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 maltreated.
Parent Noorman Windarto said he was shocked when he received a phone call from a fellow parent last Friday, urging him to pick up his two-year-old son.
He later learnt from police that the boy, who had been attending the centre since he was three months old, was among those to have been tied up.
“My heart was shattered,” the 42-year-old civil servant said.
“My wife cried. Most of them (caregivers) were women, and their body language was so tender, so soft-spoken and appeared to be religious.”
His son had been repeatedly hospitalised with pneumonia, which Noorman now suspects was caused by him being made to sleep on a cold floor without clothes.
“I am very angry, furious,” Noorman said. “They must be punished as severely as possible.”
Under the child protection law, the suspects risk up to five years’ imprisonment and a 100 million rupiah (RM22,930) fine. — AFP
