Indonesian court jails 11 for abusing toddlers at daycare centre

YOGYAKARTA - An Indonesian court sentenced 11 childcare workers on Wednesday to up to three years in prison for abusing toddlers at a daycare centre in a case that sparked nationwide outrage.

Police had arrested the workers, all women, in April along with the principal of the facility and the head of the foundation that ran it.

The arrests came after CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most under the age of two, lying on the floor wearing only nappies, their hands and feet bound with rags.

Some of the children's mothers wiped away tears as Judge Sunaryanto handed down each sentence, ranging from two to three years, at a court in Yogyakarta on Java island.

The workers were "lawfully and convincingly proven to have committed the criminal offence of participating in placing a child in a situation of abuse and neglect, as well as participating in acts of violence against a child, carried out on an ongoing basis," said the judge who, like many Indonesians, has one name.

Imedia Dwi Anjani, whose four-year-old son was a pupil at the daycare, wept as she told AFP afterwards: "These children need a lot of therapy, so if the perpetrators are only sentenced to 2 years or 2.6 years, in our view as parents, that's not fair."

The footage of conditions at the facility triggered a public scandal, and the centre was closed soon afterwards.

Police later said they had found 20 children crammed into a room just three metres (10 feet) long by three metres wide.

They estimated that more than half of the about 100 children at the daycare were maltreated.

City police chief Eva Guna Pandia said at the time that the women had told police they tied up some of the children to prevent them from disturbing others.

They also said the centre was understaffed, with not enough personnel to bathe and dress the children.

Parent Noorman Windarto told AFP in April his son was tied up and repeatedly hospitalised with pneumonia during his time at the centre, while his daughter sometimes came home with bruises her handlers said she must have sustained elsewhere.

The principal and foundation head will be judged at a later date. - AFP