Sex education: Malaysia 'far behind' on child protection awareness

Malaysia has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to spreading awareness on child protection, Woman, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh said today.

Yeoh believes the government and relevant parties, therefore, need to be "creative" in finding ways to spread sex education and teach children about predators.

“I think where we are now for child protection issues, we are very far behind. So I think we are now playing catch-up.

“And when you're playing catch-up, you have to be creative and you really have to explore all ways (of spreading awareness),” she told reporters at Parliament today.

Last month, the government launched a series of YouTube videos as part of its sexual predation awareness campaign aimed at teaching children about acceptable forms of touching.

Launched on June 24, and created in collaboration with Malaysians Against Pornography and technology company Google, the five short videos will be screened before videos aimed at children – such as children's songs and cartoons – begin to play on YouTube.

Yeoh was asked how the government planned to spread similar messages to children with no access to social platforms.

“The videos we have created target children directly. Meaning, we do not have to go and find people to come and attend talks,” she said.

Yeoh said that prior to this, these talks were usually attended by parents who were already familiar with such issues, resulting in low impact in terms of awareness.

“We also wanted to encourage people, especially children, to know of a number they can call or a person who can help, as such crimes are usually perpetrated by those known to children."

Yeoh said that the video project is still in its pilot stage and that the government was working with Google to monitor its impact, but added that it is still “better than sitting back and doing nothing.”

“So we have to try all methods and see which we one we can get with the least amount of spending but with the biggest impact," she said. "We are also in partnership with NGOs and experts."

Sex education

Yeoh also reiterated that her ministry is working with the Education Ministry on sex education in schools, certain elements of which are already being taught under the physical education and health education subjects.

“It is really now about making sure it reaches everybody and the kids understand.”

Elaborating, Yeoh said one concern was that there are many crimes committed by children against children, or by neglected children who do not have access to school.

In the latter case, she said the duty of care falls on neighbours, families and others to teach minors about sex education.

“That is why when we are looking at the issue, it is not good enough to just catch the perpetrator, but to understand why a child would do that.”

This comes following the arrests of two teenagers, a 14-year-old girl and her 15-year-old boyfriend, after they had confessed to murdering the girl’s 16-year-old brother.

Last week, a Year Six pupil, apparently influenced by videos he saw on a mobile phone, was reported to have repeatedly raped a four-year-old girl cared for by his babysitter mother.

Yeoh stated today that the report on last week’s case has yet to be finalised. - Mkini