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strong>April 15, p2

An alleged sexual abuse case was revealed on Monday in an international school in South Jakarta involving the alleged gang rape of a six-year-old student by cleaning service staff.

The victim was reportedly subjected to rape by several members of the school'€™s outsourced cleaning staff on two separate occasions in the period Feb. 20 to March 20, in one of the toilets at the school.

Your comments:

I think it'€™s time we need to implement the death penalty for such criminals. It'€™s the only way to make people learn, and to get proper justice.

Luci D Phusion

It does happen all the time. No decent person wants it to happen at all. It is very difficult to screen and profile pedophiles. They are cunning and cover their tracks well. They come from all walks of life too.

It does and can happen anywhere. The blame is with the perpetrators and the cleaning company.

Sunmoon

This is not an uncommon occurrence in developing countries, but the people only jump on the bandwagon when it hits close to home: Shame on you.

There are tens of thousands of children in Indonesia alone that are exposed to the potential for this every day, but you choose to voice your opinion only because it may affect you (or could have in the past) personally.

If you are truly outraged, then help do something about it. Contribute to local organizations that expose and fight this for everyone, not just the elite.

Canuk

What is really alarming in this case is that the alleged perpetrators did it while working as a group. In most of the developed world, these people would know there is something very wrong with them and would not communicate with others or plan with others due to shame.

There must be something very morally wrong in a society if people can talk and organize child abuse as if it was a way of hanging out. But then when you have adults forwarding '€œinteresting'€ sex pictures to each other over BlackBerry Messenger, just for fun, during working hours where is the surprise?

Themak

Children are supposed to feel safe in school, especially when parents pay over US$30,000 in tuition fees annually. It is sickening that the school isn'€™t doing anything more to show remorse or responsibility.

Bob Smith

The mother reported the incident to the school. Nothing happened. The mother reported to the police. They moved very slowly. The mother then took to the media and now things are getting done. In order to get people acting on this, the parents had to place themselves in a limelight no victim should have to be in. Their actions have opened a lot of eyes. It has made people question what they have just taken for granted before.

The school is ultimately responsible for the well-being of their students during school hours. For this, the responsible parties should be punished. The principal, the head of security and any teacher that handed over a child to a contract worker or an employee that should have been watching the CCTV camera feeds should be removed from their positions. Possibly even face neglect charges.

The media is also getting in on the sensationalism bandwagon. It is time to sell newspapers. They need to back off the sensationalism and just report what'€™s out there. Are they tabloids or newspapers?

X Simaging

The school has many security cameras but they are not everywhere. From my knowledge this was a very rare thing.

You can'€™t really blame the school for this. They try their best and the suspect was a cleaning person. Not really someone from the school. Just because this happened doesn'€™t mean it is a bad school. They could not have known that this would happen, no one can see the future.

Meo

I expect a school to protect my kids to the best of its ability but I have also talked with my children many times about protecting themselves and letting me know when anything happens.   

If we truly want to protect our children then we all have to work together:  school, community and parents.  I know that may sound cliché but it'€™s the truth.  Saying that everyone involved should be fired is just a temporary fix.  Let them investigate and if a serious breach of protocol caused this, then yes they should be fired.  But in my opinion, the child and all of the children of the school would be best protected if all of the adults worked together instead of pointing fingers.

ID Fabre

The kid should have never had to go through this, no one should, but it doesn'€™t mean it'€™s ever going to stop, instead of arguing about what happened maybe just pray that the kid gets better and moves past this and that it hopefully never happens again.

Appreciate the fact that the school is trying to help and that they are using money to provide better security and more guards and more staff training. You guys are so busy thinking about what happened to this student and not even thinking about how the students that go to the school are going to be treated now.

It'€™s unfair, I get that but blaming the school is wrong. The people who did this should be blamed we'€™ve always been told to do the right thing, they didn'€™t. Not the school.

J Brocks

Blaming the school isn'€™t wrong. If you employed a cook and provided catering services for others and your customers started dying because of poisoning would the customers blame your cook or you? The customer doesn'€™t pay the cook'€™s salary, the customer pays you for a catering service. The same principle goes with this school, it has to take the blame and be responsible.

Dermawas

The school has a responsibility to protect the children under its care and it failed miserably. Yes it is certainly the fault of the school. I also find it troubling that the English-language media doesn'€™t ever mention the name of the school involved. Try finding articles about the principal of another international school and his track record of abusing students. You will find nothing locally but lots in the Australian media.

Rupert

The mother came forward to address a serious issue. If not straight from her mouth then many rumors would emerge. Respect the child and his family and allow them to disclose as much as they feel comfortable with. The school knows that there are many issues they need to look into to bring faith and a sense of safety back for the children and parents of this school.

I admire that they came forward as now many children and parents can be on guard. If not this international school then it could be another. The school has ways of handling its issues with due respect to all students that attend it. They have made contact with parents but have not been transparent with the details.

They are not withholding information only issuing generalized statements. This can be unacceptable for parents but we have to realize that too much information may not always be a good thing. If I had known about the details early on I would have suggested that the school remain shut for a short period in respect for the parents and child.

The fact that children still attend school without knowledge of the incident troubles me. I sent my kids to school not knowing the full story but now after hearing about what happened. I don'€™t feel comfortable with my kids there whilst there are still other perpetrators around.

Bebrave