After paedo group on Facebook exposed, Nurul Izzah calls for urgent action over child sexual abuse material in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 — PKR deputy president Nurul Izzah Anwar today urged for immediate and coordinated action from government agencies to tackle the growing threat of online child sexual exploitation.
Following the recent exposure of a Facebook group allegedly sharing explicit content involving primary school children, Nurul Izzah said the incident highlighted the urgent need for systemic reform and swift enforcement in cases of online abuse.
'This is not just an alarming incident; it is a national disgrace,' she said in a statement, referring to the now-defunct Facebook group, which reportedly had more than 12,000 members.
She called on the Ministry of Communications and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to reveal their monitoring mechanisms and assess their effectiveness in detecting such crimes.
'The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the police must release public reports on this case and previous similar cases that have remained hidden from public scrutiny,' she said.
She also called for a detailed implementation update of the Online Safety Act to be tabled in Parliament.
Nurul Izzah further urged for progress updates on the special D11 sexual crimes unit, including additional funding, and proposed that Malaysia replicate regional policing networks such as Elipsia to bolster cross-border efforts against online child abuse.
Elipsia refers to the Europe-Latin America Initiative for the Safety of Children and Adolescents network, an international police cooperation across 11 Latin America countries and seven European countries to jointly confront sexual abuse and exploitation of minors on the internet.
She also called for greater public access to the Child Sexual Offender Registry, enhancements to school health education curricula to include online safety, and a community-level approach involving local leaders and NGOs.
'The statistics are grim — child sexual crimes rose by 26.5 per cent in 2023, while [child sexual abuse material] cases surged by 139.3 per cent,' she said, adding that these figures demanded more than just legislation, but effective, ground-level action.
Nurul Izzah urged parents, teachers, religious and community leaders, and social media users to work collectively — saying they can no longer afford to remain passive observers.
'In the face of a growing digital threat, we must rise as protectors — resolute, responsible, and unafraid to confront the rot at its roots,' she said.
Last week, Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching said the Facebook group sharing images of minors have been shut down after the MCMC contacted Meta to disable the Facebook account.
Teo also said that the MCMC and the police had launched Op Pedo last year, resulting in the arrest of 13 individuals and the discovery of more than 40,000 child sexual abuse materials and other pornographic content.

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