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mid a rise in cases of child rape and assault, the Jakarta Police announced on Sunday that they had arrested four men for allegedly committing different sexual assaults against juveniles in the city.

Jakarta Police general crime directorate head Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti said the four men were suspects in four different cases and their victims were mostly underage girls.

All the suspects will be charged with Article 82 of Child Protection Law No. 23/2002 that stipulates anyone persuading an underage person to have sex will be penalized with a maximum 15 years behind bars and a fine totaling Rp 300 million (US$21,756). Article 1 of the law defines underage persons as those under 18 years old.

'€œThe assaults did not always involve sexual intercourse, but I want to inform society that having sex with the underage, with or without force, is a crime,'€ he told reporters at the Jakarta Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Sunday.

Krishna said the first suspect was a man named Rusdi who was suspected of raping his own daughter, identified as DR, who suffers from a physical impairment.

He said Rusdi had started raping DR when she was 14 years old in February 2012, after the suspect divorced from his wife, DR'€™s mother.

'€œThe suspect raped DR every night, except when she had her period,'€ Krishna said, adding that the suspect allegedly asked DR to wear a sexy gown belonging to her mother on the first night she was abused.

He said Rusdi threatened to kill DR'€™s other family members if she did not fulfill the suspect'€™s demands to have sex.

Rusdi also showed pornographic movies to his daughter before he abused her, saying that the movie would be useful for her when she became a wife, according to Krishna.

Krishna said the police arrested the suspect after they received reports from DR'€™s grandmother, to whom DR had complained. However, he did not reveal when and where the arrest took place.

The police also arrested a man named Cecep for allegedly raping his sister-in-law in 2010 when the victim was 13 years old.

At first, Cecep allegedly lured the girl with candies, but then he bought her a cell-phone as a reward for having sex with him when she got older, according to Krishna.

'€œHe used to rape her in a hotel,'€ he said, adding that the girl eventually told her parents who then filed a report with the police.

The third suspect is Zulhelmi, owner of a print shop, who was allegedly forcing a girl, 16, a treasurer at his shop, to have sex with him.

'€œHe raped the girl several times until she got pregnant. She is three months into the pregnancy now,'€ Krishna said without elaborating.

The fourth suspect is Andi Bastaman Abbas, who was allegedly molesting three young girls aged 4, 7 and 8. Krishna said that Andi had abused the girls since 2012. He was arrested recently after the police received complaints from the girls'€™ parents.

According to Krishna, Andi often showed pornographic movies to the young girls before abusing them.

'€œThere was no penetration, but the suspect touched the young girls'€™ genitals and masturbated,'€ he said.

Law enforcement against child abusers recently became a priority of the Jakarta Police after reports about child rapes and assaults started to rise in number.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. M. Iqbal said that child sexual abuse cases had been alarming in recent years.

Iqbal did not provide statistics to support his claim, but the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) reported that child abuse, which includes sexual abuse against children, has been increasing over the years.

In 2014, the number of reported child abuse cases nationwide increased to 5,066 cases from 4,311 in the previous year. During the first half of this year alone, the commission has recorded almost
2,000 cases.

The KPAI recently suggested to President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo that child sex abusers should be chemically castrated to create a deterrent effect. President Jokowi previously gave the nod to the idea and the government has been reportedly preparing a regulation to implement it.

KPAI secretary-general Erlinda said on Tuesday that the chemical castration would not replace the current penalty for child sexual abusers, but rather act as an additional heavier penalty in the prevailing law. (saf)