Parents of Little Aresha Daycare Victims Furious: Child Abuse More Brutal Than Guantanamo Camp

The anger and disappointment of parents of toddler victims at the Little Aresha daycare in Yogyakarta City are uncontainable. The recently uncovered daycare case has left deep wounds for them. Moreover, the hope of entrusting their children to a safe and caring place has ended in disappointment, trauma, and anger after learning of allegations of inhumane treatment towards their children. A meeting between Yogyakarta Mayor Hasto Wardoyo and several victim parents at his official residence provided a space for venting. For more than two hours, the parents recounted suspicious incidents that had long been questions, especially when they saw initial signs that were once ignored and now have become shocking facts. One of the victim parents, Noorman Windarto, admitted he never expected that the decision to entrust his child would become the beginning of a disaster. He entrusted two of his children to the daycare at different periods. His first child showed no suspicious signs. However, a different experience occurred with his second child. “My second child always cried when being dropped off at the daycare. Almost every morning when bathing, he cried; that was an initial sign I didn’t realise. From Monday to Friday, he definitely cried, but on Saturdays and Sundays like today, it’s natural, no crying or fear when bathing, that’s the impact I only realised now,” he said when met at the Mayor’s official residence on Sunday (26/4/2026). The cries that were initially considered normal turned out to be danger signals. Over time, Noorman began to find wounds on his child’s body on the back, lips, and sensitive areas that he couldn’t explain. “Yes, definitely (wounds were found), I already confirmed if the sibling had bumped into something, the answer was diplomatic ‘I’ll ask the caregiver miss later’. For the back and lips, I sometimes bathed him and there were no scratches. Until at the daycare, I immediately took a photo of the sibling’s wounds from home, the second one also with swollen lips,” he stated. The suspicions peaked when he saw video recordings from the police. In the video, the children appeared to be tied up, not wearing clothes, or only in nappies.