Parents: Age limit in curfew proposal too high

Otherwise, they back the idea raised at the Wanita Umno assembly.

PETALING JAYA: Several parents have voiced support for a proposal to impose a night curfew on youths, but they say the age limit should be lower than suggested by a delegate to the recent Wanita Umno assembly.

They suggested an age limit a few years lower than 21 in disagreement with Wangsa Maju Wanita Umno chief Noor Aieni Mohd Ali.

Noor Aieni called for a 10pm to 5am curfew to ensure better supervision of youths by their parents. She said this would address the problem of loitering and youth involvement in immoral and criminal activities.

Anna Maria Abdul Rahman, 42, told FMT she believed anyone above 18 ought to be given the freedoms enjoyed by adults.

She lauded the idea of a curfew for children below that age “because kids these days know too much” and she attributed that to the internet and other technologies available to them.

“There is also more juvenile delinquency now, as can be seen in the recent burning of a tahfiz school,” she added.
Another parent, Chen May Lan, 54, suggested a later start of the curfew than 10pm.

“I like the proposal, but midnight sounds better,” she said.

“Of course, we can’t count on policies alone. Parents need to play their part too. We should make the effort to know our children’s friends and their parents so we’ll always know where our children are.”

Ahmad Ghulam, 46, suggested different age limits for girls and boys.

“I would agree to imposing a curfew for boys up to 16 years of age and for girls up to 21 years of age,” he said.

“Crime is on the rise and there is a lot of bad influence in this day and age. You can’t allow your children out without supervision.”

He said he was proposing a lower age limit for boys because they would be better able than girls to physically take care of themselves.

“At 16 years of age, males have pretty much grown up physically,” he said. “Even if they are lured by bad people into bad situations, at least they still have their raw physical strength as their last line of defence.

“Hopefully, girls at 21 are smart and vigilant enough not to find themselves in a pickle.”

R Sarojini, 48, said children who had completed their SPM should not be subjected to a curfew.

“We do need to know where our children are during the late hours of the night,” she said. “But after SPM, they will enter college and we can’t control them anymore. That’s also the time when they need to explore the world in preparation for adulthood.”

In calling for a lower age limit, the parents were agreeing with the Parents Action Group for Education and the Suriana Welfare Society, whose leaders told FMT recently that it was impractical to limit the movements of people older than 17 because some of them might already have started working and some could be college students who might be members of study groups that meet at night.

In Iceland, under a law enacted in 2002, there are different night curfew hours for children below 12 and those between 13 and 16.

A recent survey placed Iceland at the top of the European table for the cleanest-living teenagers. -FMT