Indonesia jails 11 daycare workers for toddler abuse

An Indonesian court sentenced 11 childcare workers on Wednesday to prison terms of two to three years for abusing toddlers at a daycare centre in Yogyakarta on Java island.

Judge Sunaryanto said the workers were proven to have participated in placing children in a situation of abuse and neglect and in acts of violence against children on an ongoing basis.

Police arrested the workers, all women, in April along with the facility's principal and the head of the foundation that ran it. The arrests came after CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most under two years old, lying on the floor wearing only nappies, with their hands and feet bound with rags.

Police later said they had found 20 children crammed into a three-metre by three-metre room and estimated that more than half of the roughly 100 children at the daycare had been maltreated. The centre was closed after the scandal.

Parent Imedia Dwi Anjani, whose four-year-old son attended the daycare, said the sentences were not fair because the children needed extensive therapy. The principal and foundation head will be judged at a later date.