Rosmah urges unity against child sexual abuse

Wife to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, Rosmah Mansur, is urging everyone to unite and take part in raising awareness about sexual crimes against children.

Rosmah who is the patron of the Child Sexual Crime Seminar, also called for parliamentarians and all sections of society to support the Child Sexual Crimes Bill which will be tabled in Parliament in the current sitting.

This, she said is because while 7,826 cases of child sexual abuse has been recorded, there are still many such incidents that remained unreported.

Many of these, she said, involved those who are below 18 years of age and occurred in the rural areas.

"We urge all parliamentarians and every level of society to support the draft law and the amendments of the existing Act to safeguard our children.

"According to statistics, 81 percent were rape cases, 54 percent incest and 67 percent involved unatural sex. Most occur in rural areas,"

"More shockingly 89 percent of the cases involved persons known by the victims, some believed to be relatives and those acquainted with their family, friends, neighbours, as well as adults working in schools and hostels," said Rosmah.

She was speaking at the seminar held at the Putra World Trade Centre today.

Rosmah also cautioned parents not to allow their kids to have unsupervised access to the internet and also prepaid handphones for their children.

She explained that imposing time limits and restrictions on social media and time on the internet alone is not enough without direct parental supervision, to ensure there is nothing amiss.

"To parents, I must stress that it is their responsibility to closely monitor their children.

"For example it is not enough to limit the time they can use the internet, but we must look through the websites that they are visiting.

"Our childrens's handphone should also be monitored from time to time and and we should avoid giving them prepaid handphones so that we can monitor their activity," she said.

Yesterday Najib announced that a new draft law specifically tailored to protect children against sexual predators will be tabled during the current parliamentary sitting.

He hoped that the Bill will be supported by all parliamentarians as it is a bipartisan responsibility to ensure the safety of children, regardless from which side of the aisle they are from.- Mkini