KUALA LUMPUR: The Sexual Offences Against Children (Amendment) Bill 2023 and Evidence of Child Witness (Amendment) Bill 2023 were tabled for the first time in Parliament on Monday to provide better protection for children.

Karen Lai, Programme Director of Women’s Center for Change, said the amendments were timely due to a rise in child sexual violence cases in recent years.

“In 2021, 14 per cent out of 187 cases of domestic and sexual violence cases that we handled involved online violence, especially online grooming of children,” she told Astro AWANI.

“This led to sexual assault, harassment and the taking and circulation of intimate images without consent.”

Last year, Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat revealed there had been a 42 per cent increase in sexual crimes against children between 2020 and 2021.

Between 2017 and 2021, the police also received over 94,000 complaints on sexual offences involving children online. Such crimes are expected to rise with the increase in access of children to smartphones and the Internet.

Plugging loopholes in child protection laws

The Sexual Offences Against Children (Amendment) Bill 2023 aims to replace the phrase “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” as well as make live streaming sex and online extortion involving children a crime.

The proposed bill would also enable the courts to order convicted perpetrators to pay compensation to their victims.

Lai noted that the compensation should take into account any expenses of damages incurred by the child’s guardian, along with future expenses such as treatment, rehabilitation, counselling, loss of income, travel and other costs associated with criminal proceedings.

Commenting on other outstanding gaps on this matter, Lai said there was a need to replace outdated provisions under the Child Act 2001 on procuring a child. This should cover aspects of child prostitution including through the use of digital technology.

“I think it’s important to harmonise the age of consent for all sexual acts. For example, there is a discrepancy between the Sexual Offences Against Children Act and the Penal Code in relation to rape.

“It's also important to establish a victim compensation fund to compensate child victims in situations where the perpetrator can't pay, which is, I suspect, going to be more often than not,” said Lai.

To help curb the issue at hand, she added that there should be mandatory obligations for internet service providers to block and report child sexual abuse materials.

Lai also stressed that enforcement against sexual live streaming and online extortion must be backed up with the necessary technical support in practice.

“Specifically, at the investigation stage, we will need the capacity of the police force to be boosted, and this will include the necessary infrastructure, equipment, knowledge, skills and human resources,” she said, adding that this would require the cooperation of multiple agencies and stakeholders including the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

Meanwhile, the Evidence of Child Witness (Amendment) Bill 2023 will increase the age of a child witness from 16 and 18, as well as new provisions of special hearings and restrictions on inappropriate questioning.

However, Lai pointed out that the proposed Section 6A under the bill, which provides for the court to allow special hearings to gather the child's evidence, does not mention the use of video-recorded police interviews at the child’s evidence-in-chief.

It was also unclear whether other measures under the Act could be utilised at these special hearings.

“This includes the use of an intermediary support person, dispensing with formal court attire and so on. So this should also be allowed at a special hearing to ensure that the child can testify comfortably,” said Lai, adding that she hoped these gaps will be addressed in the future.