T

he National Police have recorded 98 child sexual abuse cases in 18 provinces so far this year, with Riau Islands topping the list with 64 cases, police spokesman Sr. Comr. Agus Rianto said.

'€œWe have not compiled all the data from the 31 regional police offices in the country. But so far, on our current list, the Riau Police recorded the highest number of child sex abuse cases, with 64, followed by the South Kalimantan and the Yogyakarta Police with 13 cases and 7 cases respectively,'€ Agus recently told a press conference in Jakarta.

He said the case involving alleged child rapist Andri Sobari alias Emon, 24, in Sukabumi, West Java, was counted as a single case although it involved 110 children.

In recent months, child sexual abuse cases have made headlines, following the revelation of the Emon case and the alleged rape of a 6-year-old boy committed by janitors at the Jakarta International School (JIS).

Agus said that National Police Gen. Sutarman was giving special attention to the issue by ordering all regional police chiefs to step up child protection measures.

'€œThe National Police chief has instructed them to improve the role of Babinkamtibmas [a police officer assigned to a village as an advisor on security and public order] to closely monitor the community so that we can prevent cases like the one in Sukabumi from recurring,'€ he said.

Last year, the police investigated 1,635 child sexual abuse cases.

Meanwhile, the head of the police'€™s Women and Children Protection unit, Adj. Sr. Comr. Dwi Kornansiwaty, said the real number of such cases was much higher than recorded.

'€œWe only see the tip of iceberg. Most of the cases are initially based on our findings, and not from victim reports,'€ she said.

Dwi said some child molestation cases involved foreign nationals, who came to the country after receiving nude photos of Indonesian children.

'€œThere is some kind of an online network, where pedophiles share their own collection of child pornographic pictures. In one case, a foreign national uploaded the photos of nude children he met in a city. This prompted other pedophiles to come and prey on children in that city,'€ she said.

Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Java, West Java and Riau Islands are the provinces most vulnerable to sexual predators, Dwi said.

She went on to say that a handful of convicted child molesters from foreign countries had entered or reentered Indonesia after finishing prison terms. To deter them from re-offending, she said, the police closely monitored these child molesters.

'€œUpon their arrival in Indonesia, we track their place of residence and order the local police office to put them on a watch list,'€ she said over the weekend, while declining to reveal the exact number of convicted sex offenders residing in Indonesia.