KUALA LUMPUR: The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry is in the process of shutting down the nursery in Batu Gajah, Perak, where a four-year-old girl was raped by the caretaker’s 12-year-old son.
Its minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said the Social Welfare Department found that the nursery was not registered under the ministry.
“I was made to understand that the nursery is not registered despite having eight children under their care. Only if you have less than four children, are you not required (to register),” she told reporters in Parliament, here, today.
Wan Azizah, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, said officers from the ministry have also visited the home and are looking at ways to assist the victim, as well as the other children there.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the year six pupil, apparently influenced by soft pornographic contents he saw on a mobile phone, had raped the girl cared for by his babysitter mother three times since May.
The boy admitted to committing the offences upon questioning after the girl’s mother lodged a report, following advice from a doctor who informed that the girl had a broken hymen and tears on her private parts.
The boy has since been held and remanded until July 5.
Wan Azizah urged parents to be more vigilant of contents consumed by underage children on the internet, saying there should be stricter parental control.
On efforts to crack down on unregistered nurseries, Wan Azizah said the ministry was finding it difficult as it was hard for them to locate these premises without being provided information.
“In Putrajaya alone, there are only 26 registered nurseries. We need to do stricter enforcement, but it is quite hard when we can’t determine where the unregistered ones are,” she said, urging all nurseries to register themselves.
