The formation of the unit was announced by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the finance minister, when tabling Budget 2023 in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
Women’s Centre of Change (WCC) programme director Karen Lai said it shows the seriousness of such a crime has been recognised.
“Between 2017 and 2021, police received more than 94,000 complaints on sexual offences involving children online,” she told FMT.
“It’s also been reported that police anticipate more and more such crimes, especially those involving non-physical sexual assault, such as offensive photographs and videos, taking place in the future.”
Lai said that these crimes can be very difficult to track because they happen online, so specialist training, support and resources will be needed.
In May last year, D11 principal assistant director Siti Kamsiah Hassan said between 2017 and March 2022, police received 93,368 internet protocol (IP) addresses in the country suspected of being involved in child pornography.
The information was obtained through the information sharing system, comprising members such as Interpol, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Centre For Missing and Exploited Children.
She said due to the lack of trained staff to filter and scrutinise the information received, only 103 IP addresses were checked. This led to the arrest of 50 individuals.
All Women’s Action Society senior programme manager Lilian Kok said the establishment of the special unit is necessary as fighting cybercrime is especially difficult with international jurisdictions governing popular apps.
“We hope that the additional budget allocation will continue to improve D11’s effort on tackling cybercrime by pushing procedures to be compatible with international standards,” she said.
However, Lai said there needs to be some explanation on the whereabouts of D11’s RM13 million allocation from Budget 2022 to hire an additional 100 officers to handle sexual crimes against children.
“It is important for us to understand what was done with that earlier budget allocation in terms of ramping up resources for D11,” Lai said.
Kok also questioned whether there were any changes to the allocation, noting that no specific figure was provided in the revised budget.
“This is where monitoring and evaluation (M&E) exercises will be important to identify which parts need more scrutiny than others,” she said.
“M&E exercises on budget measures are essential to ensure minimal wastage and effective allocation of resources.”