PETALING JAYA: It began as harmless chats on social media. Anna (not her real name) started chatting on social media with a man only known as Kay.

He said he was a globetrotter who was constantly travelling and had lots of friends and instagrammable lifestyle.

The only problem: it was all fake.

And the 15 year-old Anna almost got raped by the man, who turned out to be twice her age.

Recounting the incident, Anna’s mother, who only wanted to be known as Lisa, said her daughter had gone out to meet Kay when her parents were not at home.

“She said she was curious to know how this man looked and how he was as a person.

“He never revealed his name nor used his real photo. He even used a prepaid number which was registered under someone else’s name to contact her,” said Lisa.

“When she got into the car, he drove away and stopped about two kilometres away and tried to force himself on her,” she added.

“Somehow my daughter managed to get out of the car and she ran back home. It was a narrow escape,” she said.

More worryingly, Anna was not the only girl from her school whom “Kay” had befriended, there were many others on his friends list, all minors.

Lisa expressed concern that the man had added her daughters’ schoolmates on his now deleted social media. He could not be tracked as he had used fake details.

“I don’t understand why a man in his 30s would want to befriend teenage girls. I am also concerned if any of the other girls had fallen victim,” she said.

In a separate incident, Aishah, 39, found out that her 40 year-old relative had been sexually abusing her 13 year-old niece for the past five years.

“It broke my heart to find out that my niece, who was like my own daughter, had to go through this. My niece confided with one of her friends that this man had been touching her inappropriately.

“Since the friend’s mother knew our family, she came forward to tell us. We noticed a change in behaviour, she seemed very disturbed and had lost her zest for life.

“When we found out, we took the necessary measures to keep her safe from the abuser,” she said.

Aishah said parents must be careful and not trust anyone blindly, especially around their young children.

“It is not necessary that the predators are someone unknown to us, sometimes they are closer than we think,” she said.

HUGE SPIKE IN CHILD ABUSE CASES

There were 2,859 sexual abuse cases involving underaged victims in 2022. Last year, the number had spiked to 3,892.

There has been a sharp increase in sexual abuse since 2022, police statistics show, with 3,439 cases in 2023 and 1,289 in just the first four months of this year.

According to the Bukit Aman Criminal Investi­gations Department (CID) sexual, women and child investigation division (D11), a total of 11,479 cases were reported between 2022 and April this year.

Rape, in particular, went from 1,277 cases in 2022, to 1,500 cases in 2023 before going up to 1,689 cases in 2024. As of April, D11 had recorded 473 cases of rape.

Rape cases also made up 43% of all recorded sexual crimes on underage victims.

Physical sexual abuse followed a similar trend with each year showing big increases in the number of cases.

Last year, there were 1,729 cases, 341 more than the previous year’s 1,388.

Of all the recorded cases since 2022, 1,084 victims were boys with 10,896 being girls.

Horrifyingly, 421 of the cases involved children victims below the age of six.

About half of the victims – or 6,051 – were aged between 13 and 15. A further 24.48%, or 2,933, were between 16 and 18.

Bukit Aman Criminal Investigations Department (CID) sexual, women and child investigation division (D11) principal assistant director Senior Asst Comm Siti Kamsiah Hassan said it was hard to pinpoint the exact number of paedophilic suspects officially as this would need confirmation and examinations by medical professionals.

“However around 70% of sexual cases in Malaysia involve child victims.

“From this percentage, a big portion have been found, via our interviews and their continuous actions, to have an ‘orientation’ towards Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for long periods of time.”

SEX PREDATORS TARGET THE VERY YOUNG

A 61-year-old man stands accused of raping a 13-year-old while her mother looked on, a social media influencer sends lewd messages to a 14 year-old; and a whole Facebook group is started to promote sexual content involving children.

Young people, even those under the age of 12, are increasingly becoming targets of a disturbing surge in online sexual exploitation cases against minors in the country.

This could also be due to the early and often unsupervised access to smartphones, social media, and the internet, say police.

Cases of pedophilia have been on the rise over the past three years with a worrying downward shift in the age group of victims, said Bukit Aman Criminal Investigations Department (CID) sexual, women and child investigation division (D11) principal assistant director Senior Asst Comm Siti Kamsiah Hassan said.

She said younger minors aged below 12 have become targets of sexual predators.

“More children today are exploring online content earlier than ever before, often without guidance or monitoring. Such early exposure, especially for children under 15, who have no digital literacy or protective boundaries makes them highly vulnerable to grooming and exploitation by online predators.

“When targeting victims, the predators establish a seemingly innocent friendship with a child, often pretending to share common interests. Upon gaining their victim’s trust, the predators would switch to sexually inclined conversations,” Siti Kamsiah told The Star recently.

She said the predators convince victims that they have a special connection with them before the relationship dives deeper. Eventually, the relationship leads to either physical or non-physical contact.

Siti Kamsiah said that in some reported cases of non-physical contact, predators offer children access to explicit content or child sexual abuse material (CSAM) for a fee.

She said that if the victims are unable to pay for the material, they are coerced into sending nude videos of themselves in exchange.

“However, when such material is obtained, predators would often extort cash from them and threaten to share the video and images publicly,” said Siti Kamsiah.

She said it was equally concerning that individuals with social influence, including content creators and influencers, were taking advantage of their followers, especially minors.

“Some of these individuals may post sexually suggestive content or initiate private and inappropriate communication with minors by exploiting the children’s admiration for them,” Siti Kamsiah explained.

She said there was an urgent need for vigilance at home and in schools by parents and teachers.

Parents, she said, should take the lead in creating a safe digital environment for their children by supervising internet access, setting boundaries, and instilling moral, ethical and religious values from a young age to prepare them to be resilient and safeguard them against threats in the virtual world.

“Parents should be the gatekeepers to the digital world their children explore. If they do not actively supervise them, the children may be left vulnerable in dangerous spaces,” said Siti Kamsiah.

Schools, being a “second family” to children, should also be watchful with teachers taking notice of early signs of distress or behavioural changes in children that may point to abuse.

“They should also create a safe environment for children as perpetrators may also exist within trusted roles, including teachers. Teachers can easily win the trust of children who may see them as role models,” Siti Kamsiah said.

Recently, a 61-year-old man and his 36-year-old girlfriend were detained in connection with the rape and attempted rape of the woman’s teenage daughter.

Ampang Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Azam Ismail said initial investigations revealed that the man raped the 13-year-old victim last year while her mother witnessed the act.

At the end of May, a social media influencer was investigated for sending lewd messages to a 14-year-old teenager.

In June, an influencer reported a Facebook group that allegedly promoted sexual content involving misused images of children.

Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has contacted Facebook’s owner and operator, Meta, on the matter.

A DIGITAL SHIELD FOR KIDS

With a click of a mouse, parents and those in child-related sectors can soon do background checks to keep kids safe from over 500 paedophiles in the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry’s registry.

Currently, all applications for information on offenders listed in the Child Sexual Offenders Registration System (e-DKK) must be made at the nearest state or district JKM.

The ministry’s upcoming Children Service System (ANAK) will integrate the e-DKK, allowing interested parties to submit online applications for information on convicted child offenders, those under investigation, intelligence data and cases currently on trial.

Individuals, including parents and employment agencies, wanting to do background checks to hire employees for childcare centres or babysitters, dormitory wardens and attendants can request for an online check, the ministry told The Star.

Checks can also be made to screen applicants for jobs in the education field such as teachers, gardeners, canteen operators, security guards; healthcare jobs such as attendants, nurses and doctors; transportation related jobs such as school bus drivers, sports and recreation and others determined reasonable by the ministry.

The e-DKK can increase the protection and safety of children as those looking to hire can ensure that the candidate does not have a criminal record against children, the ministry said.

“All information is controlled by the system administrator to ensure that the data is protected under the Official Secrets Act 1972 (Act 88). “Misuse or leaked information can lead to legal action,” it added. The e-DKK is part of the Children’s Register, which is governed by the Child Act (Act 611).

Enforced in April 2019, e-DKK is managed by the Social Welfare Department (JKM), which is under the ministry’s purview. A decade after the Richard Huckle case, which involved a British paedophile who abused some 200 Malaysian children, the country’s e-DKK has listed over 500 paedophiles in just the last six years.

While the number of the offenders on the registry has been growing, the request for access to information has also been on the rise, the ministry said. In 2019, there were 59 offenders on the list, with the number increasing to 545 as of May this year.

Criminologist Datuk Dr P. Sundramoorthy urged authorities to make the sex offender list publicly accessible, arguing that a public registry could serve as a vital safeguard against harm.

“This is not merely an administrative tool but a vital public safety mechanism. “We have made progress in how we prosecute and sentence offenders but our prevention strategies are still sorely lacking,” he said, adding that public sex offender registries with strict safeguards can empower parents, schools, and communities.

“The public has a right to know if a convicted sexual offender is living or working nearby, particularly when children are involved. “We owe it to our children to ensure that paedophiles do not commit the crime again,” he said.

The former Universiti Sains Malaysia associate professor said concerns that making the registry public could give rise to vigilantism or hinder the rehabilitation of offenders can be addressed with clear guidelines, tiered disclosure systems and proper support mechanisms for the reintegration of the individual.

“It is not about shaming or perpetually punishing the offenders. “It’s about prioritising prevention, transparency and safety because the trauma left by sexual crimes especially on children is profound and often lasts a lifetime.”