By Amar-Singh HSS and Farah Nini Dusuki
We write this on our National Day. In two weeks, we will celebrate our 61st Malaysia Day. Both very meaningful and emotional days for us all.
Six decades is a long time, and it is important we reflect on where we have come, the progress we have made and our shortcomings.
As a nation, we have made significant economic progress. Better access to education and healthcare as well as improved infrastructure and economic opportunities have enabled many to enhance their family wellbeing.
But we have left some behind. Six decades after independence, we still see a significant proportion of our children living in poverty; many caught in a lifelong poverty trap. The bottom 20% of households have much higher under- five mortality rates and far lower educational attainment.
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With the escalating cost of living, relative poverty has worsened and many families struggle every day. Many of us no longer speak of the bottom 40% but the bottom 60%, as the bottom half of the middle class is also struggling.
Every child that continues to live in poverty is our collective shame as a nation. The frustrating part is having the means, resources and services to end this, yet not doing so.
We urgently need to carry out a mapping of families at risk. We need to develop a comprehensive safety net that does not miss anyone. And we need sustained economic support to ensure food and economic security.
To efficiently provide resources to these groups, government agencies need to collaborate with civil society groups.
We must keep revising our “poverty line income” (currently out of date) in tandem with the rising cost of living. We need to give special emphasis to indigenous children, those living in Sabah and our inner-city slum areas.
The rights to survive and develop optimally – two key rights for every child – remain problematic for many.
Children require protection from harm and to be given a safe environment and home to live in.
We are blessed that our nation remains peaceful and free from ongoing violence, and we pray for this to continue.
However, child abuse appears to have worsened with an increase in reports and intensity of the violence. A larger number of abused children remain undetected and continue to suffer in silence. Online abuse of children is widespread.
We have good legislation to support children – the Child Act 2001 (amended 2016) and Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 (SOAC) (amended 2023).
But our Penal Code and other legislation have not been harmonised with the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child nor the Child Act.
Sadly, our child protection services remain limited. Doctors, welfare officers and police personnel have limited training in child protection, causing children to suffer despite being in the protective web.
The safety of children on the road is another grave concern. From 2009 to 2021, close to 2,900 children aged six to 15 were killed due to motorcycle riding. Eighty-seven of these were aged six to 10.
Although we have clear laws in different legislation for punishing parents for allowing children below 16 to ride motorcycles, these senseless deaths persist.
The lack of measures to prevent childhood drowning is another concern.
The formation of a Children’s Development Department is a step in the right direction.
But we urgently need to strengthen our child protection services. All healthcare professionals, police and Welfare Department staff need to be formally trained in child protection and rights, according to our legislation.
We desperately need adequate numbers of trained social workers to support the work. In this respect, we are far behind countries in our region. As a stop-gap measure, we could ‘deputise’ civil society groups to support the work of the Welfare Department.
The child protection teams and the child welfare teams created under the Child Act should be mobilised more for the same purpose.
Our nation has made education accessible to all citizens, with compulsory primary school. This is commendable and has had huge social, economic and health impacts.
But we have faltered in our progress. We have a large school dropout problem (see Ministry of Education data in Quick Facts 2022). Some children appear not to attend school. Other children – the stateless, refugees, asylum seekers, the undocumented and those in detention – are denied access to education.
This conflicts with the aspirations of our excellent Malaysian education blueprint. And it does not speak well of our humanity as a nation of over six decades.
Children with disabilities face challenges in getting inclusive education. In this respect, we lag behind our neighbours. The implementation of inclusive education is poor, universal design for learning non-existent and support for teachers limited.
We need to be compassionate to ensure all the children in our beloved nation have access to education. We must support the 15% of children with disabilities to receive full inclusion in mainstream education.
The time for a reform of our education system, its policies and resource allocations are overdue.
The health of their children is at the heart of all parents. While we have developed a robust public health system accessible to the majority of the people with minimal or no payment, some children remain underserved.
Our childhood mortality rates have remained stagnant for the past 20 years. This is a sharp indicator that our health spending on children’s health has not kept up with the needs.
Critically, we have one of the lowest intensive care bed rates in the region. Every single day, for decades, paediatricians across the nation have to search for an intensive care bed for a premature baby or an ill child. Many work in demoralised environments, struggling to do the best they can for children with the limited resources they have.
We urgently need to allocate more of the Budget to child health resources, in particular intensive care. We desperately need more well-equipped neonatal intensive care unit and paediatric intensive care unit beds across the country with enough staff.
As we celebrate our National Day and our 61st Malaysia Day, let us ask ourselves if we have grown and matured as a nation. One mark of a nation’s maturity is how it treats its children, the most vulnerable of society.
As long as we do not prioritise children’s wellbeing – their food security, health needs, education access – we cannot say that, as a nation, we have come of age. In reality, we have been slipping back.
We hope our leaders and all of society will listen to the silent cries of our children and put the children’s best interest uppermost. Some children live lives that are unfulfilled, marginalised and in poverty. It is time to end all discrimination against children and meet their real needs.
“Leave no child behind” should be our anthem as we celebrate these auspicious days in the formation of our nation.
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS is a consultant paediatrician and child-disability activist. Dr Farah Nini Dusuki is the children’s commissioner of Malaysia.
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
