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Where has the RM13m budgeted for investigating sexual crimes against children gone? DAP MP asks

Malay Mail
Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28 — As Malaysians look forward to Budget 2023 next month, Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto today asked the government to explain in detail how it has spent the RM13 million set aside last year for investigating sexual crimes against women and children.

The DAP politician had a number of questions for Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin about the allocation from last year’s Bbudget for the D11 police division dedicated to sexual crimes, especially its expenditure on investigations involving children.

“If not, has it been used to cushion the promotions within Bukit Aman?” she asked in a statement.

The DAP deputy secretary for international affairs urged the home minister to table a detailed financial report on the D11’s spending of government allocations in the coming Dewan Rakyat sitting.

She also asked if the allocated money had been fully spent to deploy police officers with the proper skills, knowledge and experience in handling sexual crimes cases to all states in the country.

“Is RM13 million sufficient for employing 100 officers, to purchase vehicles, equipment and office fixtures including an ‘anatomy doll’ with a recorder?” she added.

According to Kasthuri’s calculations, if the allocation were divided equally, each state would have seven D11 officers to handle such crimes.

However, she suggested relooking this as some states were larger geographically and population-wise such as Sarawak, requiring more manpower and assets compared to smaller states like Perlis.

Referring to a past parliamentary reply from the Home Ministry, she said there is no need for the government to set up 14 offices under the Malaysian Internet Crimes Against Children (MICAC) nationwide.

Instead she suggested a more streamlined reporting system linking the MICAC headquarters to each state and even district police station.

"What the government needs to do is employ more staff who are true experts in online wizardry to hack, break, monitor and stalk child sexual crime offenders online or in the dark web instead of setting up another office in each state,” Kasthuri suggested.

She also suggested the D11 investigators provide a briefing in Parliament to MPs next week so they can “all be part of the solution instead of the problem”.

She hoped that D11 principal assistant director Assistant Commissioner Siti Kamsiah Hassan who yesterday disclosed the number of sexual crimes reported since 2020 would be able to provide further information on the number of arrests, charges in court, convictions as well as discharges not amounting to acquittals, and acquittals.

Yesterday, Siti Kamsiah said that D11 received 24 reports on sexual crimes in 2020, 35 reports last year and this year a total of 11 reports were received between January and April.

The senior police officer also said that almost 60 percent of victims of sexual crimes in Malaysia were children.

“When conviction rates are low, there is a great distrust of society in the system and the system must be fixed,” Kasthuri said.