Building a society that will not harm children

The horrific condition of five-year-old Nur Zuliana of Pasir Mas, Kelantan, who has numerous fractures and severely malnourished due to heart-breaking abuse she has suffered for some two years, has evoked much anger among the public since the case hit the headlines last week.

Even as the child’s father and stepmother are being investigated by the police, calls for stiffer penalties for child abuse continue to feature in the news.

It may seem natural to demand the harshest punishment for the perpetrators of such abuse who inflict unspeakable harm on innocent children, and even helpless infants. To those who advocate retribution, justice would only be done if the culprit gets a taste of his or her own medicine.

While the severest punishment may only seem justified and could indeed serve as a deterrent, it does not address the root causes of child abuse, which deserve to be the focus of our attention. To ensure that the common prescriptions for the problem can truly produce the best outcomes, we owe it to ourselves to examine the common assumptions about why and when child abuse happens.

At the very least, we should be prepared to investigate this complex issue holistically, including the behavioural dimensions of the problem and the social context in which child abuse tends to occur. It would surely be useful to develop a sound understanding of the phenomenon before we put our minds to solutions, which are hopefully constructive.

In this way, we can avoid merely venting our anger on the abuser, without giving sufficient thought to the chain of interrelated causative factors that culminate in abuse.

Moreover, we must not neglect to ask whether the relevant institutions that deal with child welfare have responded effectively to this distressing crisis.

First, it is important to recognise that child abuse mostly goes unreported, so while the official statistics are somewhat useful as indicators of the problem, they leave much ground uncovered. Nevertheless, they should alert us to deeper issues that undermine child welfare which deserve our attention. 

Statistics from the Department of Social Welfare indicate that the most common forms of child abuse are neglect (41%), where a carer fails to provide for the child’s basic needs, physical abuse (31%) and sexual abuse (24%), including incest.

It is immediately apparent that the statistics do not capture significant problems like emotional abuse in its varied forms, which may contribute to behavioural and developmental problems, with implications for the victim, family members and society at large.

Moreover, the national figures represent only those cases that are reported to the Department of Social Welfare, police and hospitals or clinics. This means that the statistics reflect only the most severe cases of child abuse that are detected through tip-offs to the Social Welfare hotline, police reports and when the child is brought to a health facility for treatment.

If we are truly earnest about protecting the nation’s children, the Department of Social Welfare’s child protection programme must be seriously upgraded to enable it to undertake routine and preventive monitoring of children in vulnerable circumstances, instead of the current crisis response function that it serves with its limited resources.

In this context, it is also pertinent to examine whether an upgrading of child protection services can be more effective if the programme were brought under the Health Ministry to be managed by health professionals specialising in child development issues.

Although this may require the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development to hand over a significant part of its portfolio in the interest of promoting children’s welfare, it would nevertheless remain an important stakeholder at the inter-ministerial level by virtue of its role in family development programmes.

Since child abuse has many dimensions, it requires comprehensive, multi-pronged approaches to mitigate its causative factors and to create an environment in which children can grow up well nurtured and loved.

As noted by Unicef Malaysia, perpetrators of child abuse and neglect are the very people responsible for the child’s safety and well-being. Statistics from the Department of Social Welfare show that out of the 3,428 child abuse cases reported in Malaysia in 2011, some 1,500 were the biological mother or father of the child.

This creates a dilemma in terms of the family’s overall welfare. While contact between the child and abuser may need to be stopped temporarily, this must be balanced with the need for the family to function as an economic and social unit. Support from other family members, the community and the Social Welfare Department may be crucial for all-round positive outcomes.

With the current trend towards nuclear families and the increasing pressures of urbanised lifestyles, many resources must be put into developing appropriate support systems for young, vulnerable families to cope with the stresses of raising a family. 

In the context of evaluating preventive measures against child abuse, it is therefore important to examine the state’s responsibility to ensure that the living environment of the ordinary citizen with a family is equipped with sufficient facilities for healthy family activities, such as crèches, resource centres, leisure facilities and parks.

As abusive behaviour is also influenced by a variety of psychological factors – ranging from emotional health and self-image to a history of abuse to societal pressures and more – as a society, we must also take stock of the direction in which we are heading in terms of our interpersonal relations, personal expectations, human values and the like.

From this self-inquiry, we can hopefully evolve a kinder, more wholesome ethos which can neutralise any impulse to inflict harm on a defenceless child.  – July 4, 2015. 

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.