T

he Medan Police in North Sumatra continue to investigate an incident of sexual assault allegedly committed by pupils of an elementary school in the city against a fellow classmate.

The investigation was initiated following a report filed by the parent of the victim with police on Oct. 14, 2014.

Medan Police deputy chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Yusuf Hondawan said his office would coordinate with the North Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) to carry out the investigation, a measure he said was necessary because both the alleged perpetrators and the victim were underage.

'€œThis way, we will not employ the wrong method,'€ Yusuf told reporters in Medan on Friday.

The father of the victim arrived at city police headquarters on Tuesday to report the sexual abuse of his daughter, a fourth grader.

The father said the incident happened in a locked bathroom next to the school'€™s teachers'€™ lounge during a break.

'€œThere were five perpetrators, all of whom were girls. Three stood guard outside the bathroom while the other two abused my daughter inside the bathroom,'€ he said.

He said one of the abusers took off the victim'€™s skirt and underwear while the other penetrated the victim'€™s vagina with a toilet brush. The abuse, he said, occurred '€” a total of three times '€” on Sept. 29, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.

After learning about the assault, the father immediately took his daughter to a doctor who diagnosed the victim with rectal injuries.

'€œAs of today, my daughter still refuses to go to school because she is traumatized,'€ he said, adding that he wanted the school to expel the perpetrators so that his daughter could regain the courage to go to school.

Separately, Medan Mayor Dzulmi Eldin said he had assigned the Medan Education Agency head to manage the case.

'€œI have also reprimanded the school principal for failing to control the students,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, in Central Java, parents have expressed concerns over the increasing incidence of violence in schools. Recently, two incidents of bullying were reported in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra and Temanggung regency, Central Java. The bullying in Bukittinggi went viral on the Internet after footage of the incident was uploaded onto YouTube.

Sulastri, a mother of three, said she was afraid that her third-grade daughter would fall victim to bullying.

'€œChildren have a tendency to emulate violence aired on television. They may think that it'€™s cool even though it'€™s horrible,'€ she said on Friday.

Budiman, another parent, said people rarely took bullying seriously. He said that his overweight child was reluctant to go to school after being called fat. '€œMany people consider teasing as something harmless. It may not physically hurt, but it hurts the heart,'€ he said.

Irna Minauli, a lecturer in psychology at Medan Area University, said that children that abused other children usually suffered from a behavioral disorder.

She added that children with behavioral disorders tended to break rules and were predisposed to harming people or animals.

'€œSuch behavior is often exhibited by children exposed to violence,'€ she said, adding that immediate action needed to be taken to treat behavioral disorders among children.

Irna said that it was unfortunate that violence among children was often ignored by parents and teachers.