OVER the years we have had numerous wake-up calls for improving child protection services. Children dying in childcare centres, being abused in government and religious schools, and being abused in government-run welfare homes, among others.  

Now we hear of the travesty of 402 children abused in 20 Global Ikhwan Services and Business Holdings (GISBH) welfare homes in Selangor and Negri Sembilan. The horrific sexual and physical abuse that has been reported in the past 24 hours is a major wake-up call. It demands that we re-evaluate the quality and scope of our child protection services.  

As advocates for child protection, we need to ask the following important questions, and we need answers – honest and real ones.  

How many of these GISBH centres are registered and known to the Welfare Department? Has there been a regular time-based registration renewal after an evaluation for those centres registered? 

For the GISBH centres registered or known to the Welfare Department, how many of them have received visits for an inspection and monitoring? Knowing how many visits were paid to these centres over the years would be useful.   

The police statement notes that 41 police reports have been lodged against GISBH from 2011 to 2024. How many of these were related to childcare and/or abuse? What action was taken? Did the police notify the Welfare Department if any childcare issue or abuse was suspected (as is a mandated requirement under the Child Act 2001)? 

What is the capacity of the Welfare Department to support these 402 children who were abused, in terms of providing them a safe location and the extensive psychological support they need? Note that the children’s homes run by the Welfare Department are overloaded and understaffed, with poor psychosocial support. 

The horrific abuse is just coming to light now, but these GISBH homes have been operating for years. How many children have gone through this over time? What is being done to identify and support them? How many other GISBH homes in the country need to be evaluated? 

In working with the Welfare Department, we noticed a reluctance to monitor and enforce child protection policies in religious institutions. Is religion an excuse to not enforce the Child Act? Are childcare facilities registered under Jabatan Agama and the Ministry of Education exempt from the Child Act and Welfare Department purview? The Child Act is clear – it covers all children, and the Welfare Department are the designated protectors of all children in the country. 

We are aware that the Welfare Department is short-staffed. Why is the Welfare Department reluctant to use civil society organisations to support child protection services? 

We are distressed with the lack of significant growth in child protection services under the Welfare Department over many years. The time must come when we draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough. The time is long overdue for an extensive revamp of the Welfare Department.  

We cannot keep running child protection services with staff who are learning on the job. Would you like your children to go to school and be taught by people who are learning on the job? Would you like to go to a hospital and be treated by staff who have no formal training in healthcare? We need professionals, trained social workers, to take over and run qualified and effective child protection services – where children are given real protection and childcare facilities monitored effectively.   

We urgently need answers to these questions to be made public. There is a serious trust deficit, and we cannot continue to deny our children the child protection services they require. We appeal to our elected representatives, our MPs, to help us obtain these answers and inform the public of the situation.  

Remember that this is the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous children’s homes in the country, some registered and most poorly monitored, if at all. There are confinement centres, child minders, schools, and resident care homes that also need to be registered and monitored. We have barely begun. 

Unless the legally designated child protectors admit to failure and their limitations, we cannot acknowledge this crisis. We recognise that the Welfare Department is grossly understaffed, but the solution is not to take in more untrained individuals but to push very hard to employ trained social workers. This also means making a concerted effort to grow our social worker training in the country. We need minimum standards of care for all children. Finally, we need mandatory licensing and monitoring of all childcare facilities. – September 12, 2024.  

 * This letter carries the following signatures:

1.    Dr Amar-Singh HSS, Consultant Paediatrician, Child-Disability Activist 

2.    Yayasan Chow Kit 

3.    Ramesh Patel, Pusat Jagaan Kanak Kanak Vivekananda Rembau 

4.    Yap Sook Yee, child-disability advocate, mother to a child with disability 

5.    Jeannie Low, Chief Operations Director, Play Unlimited 

6.    Childline Foundation 

7.    Toy Libraries Malaysia 

8.    Aisha Zanariah Abdullah, child advocate 

9.    Anisa binti Ahmad, child activist 

10.  National Early Childhood Intervention Council 

11.  HOST International Foundation Malaysia 

12.  Lim Mei Yek, President, Kuching Association of Talent Development and Welfare of Special Needs 

13.  Asha Singh, social worker 

14.  Dr Wong Woan Yiing, consultant paediatrician 

15.  Wong Hui Min, President, National Early Childhood Intervention Council 

16.  Sin Tiew Cheo, Chairman, SPICES Early Intervention Centre 

17.  Dr Ng Su Fang, Consultant Paediatrician 

18.  Gill Raja, social work lecturer 

19.  Department of Education, University of Swinburne Sarawak 

20.  Prof. Dr Toh Teck Hock, consultant paediatrician 

21.  Sarawak Women for Women Society 

22.  Asia Community Service 

23.  World Vision Malaysia 

24.  Amy Bala, Malaysian Association of Social Workers 

25.  Ng Lai-Thin, Project Lead, National Early Childhood Intervention Council 

26.  Kong Lan Lee, Director, Persatuan Kanak-Kanak Istimewa Kajang 

27.  Dr Mastura binti Ibrahim, consultant paediatrician 

28.  Dr Norhafizah Ahmad, consultant paediatrician 

29.  Michelle Lai, Chairman, New Horizons Society 

30.  Women’s Centre for Change 

31.  Dr Ling How Kee, social work educator and child rights activist 

32.  Agnes Suganthi, consultant paediatrician 

33.  Global Shepherds 

34.  Vanguards4Change 

35.  Purple Lily Social Association Kuching 

36.  Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor 

37.  Wilhelmina Mowe 

38.  Azira Aziz, lawyer 

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.