The Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry will organise a meeting with other relevant ministries after Chinese New Year to discuss the need for sex education for children.
Its minister Nancy Shukri, speaking to members of the press today, said the matter was brought up in a cabinet meeting.
“It should not fall under us alone. I will have a coordination meeting not just with the Education Ministry.
“We want to bring in the Health Ministry, National Unity Ministry, and Local Government Development Ministry because we need to have an ecosystem with the community,” she said.
She was speaking after attending an event under the Social Welfare Department (JKM) in Putrajaya today.
“We also need the Religious (Affairs) Minister (Mohd Na’im Mokhtar) and the Youth and Sports Minister (Hannah Yeoh), because she has been in this ministry before,” Nancy added.
Elaborating on the matter, she said the meeting is also to find out what is within the modules and subjects for students who are under the country’s education system at the moment.
“When they (relevant ministries) have programmes, they must have programmes on parenting, on values and about education.”
Earlier, Nancy said her ministry, through JKM, has handled 5,572 cases involving abuse and neglect of children, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
She said the cases were handled by JKM officers who acted as guardians as gazetted under the Children’s Act 2001.
She also called on officers from the ministry as well as JKM to always monitor issues pertaining to children that are occurring on social media.
Independent children’s commission
Meanwhile, she also commended the setting up of an independent children’s commission under the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), saying it can help provide check and balance to her ministry as well as other related ministries.
She said the establishment of the commission would not result in an overlap of duties among the ministries.
“Although our ministry is responsible for giving recommendations to the commission, the commission is not under our ministry.
“The commission is free to monitor matters related to children and it will help us and also other ministries such as the Home Ministry and the Education Ministry that deal with children.”
Earlier today, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced that the commission will deal with cases of abuse and social problems related to children.
Anwar said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has been asked to chair a committee to study the related problems.
The children’s commissioner will be revealed by one of the ministries at a later date, he said after today’s cabinet meeting. - Mkini
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