Sunday November 18, 2007

Home truths about safety

By HARIATI AZIZAN

sunday@thestar.com.my

The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child expressly recognises that parents have the most important role in ensuring the well-being of children. But the Government has a role to play, too.

BANK staff Anita Ariffin* used to leave her two sons, aged six and seven, at home when she had to pop into the office on a Saturday or a public holiday.

“I felt that they were old enough to take care of themselves. I left them lunch and specific instructions not to open the doors to anyone and to call me straightaway if anything was wrong. I called in to check on them every two hours and nothing happened,” she says.

Anita then became more confident about leaving her children home alone, that is until one day she saw used match stumps near the bin when she got home from work.

“They were starting to be curious about fire. Worse, I don’t use matches, so when I grilled them I found out that they had been going to the sundry shop downstairs on their own.”

That was the last time she ever left her children home alone.

Single mother Sumaliah Embong, 30, was not so lucky. When her babysitter took time off, the restaurant worker had to leave her 17-month-old daughter with her two sons, aged three and five, alone at home while she went out to earn their keep. A fire broke out, killing her daughter.

The need for flexible and affordable child care is urgent among parents living in urban areas, particularly those in the lower income group. Single parents need it more.

Childcare rates can go from RM150 to RM800 per child in the city, which is a burden to many struggling to make a living.

A helping hand

Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, governments are obliged to not only respect the parents’ primary responsibility for providing care and guidance for their children but also to support them in this regard.

This is specifically stated in Article 18, which highlights the need for governments to provide the appropriate assistance, such as material aid and support programmes.

Article 18 also states that governments should take all appropriate measures to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from childcare services and facilities for which they are eligible.

The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry has been urging for the establishment of affordable childcare facilities in the workplace since the turn of the century, but their calls have been falling on deaf ears.

The newly proposed Child Protection Policy (CPC) may finally make some change.

Perceived by many as the knee-jerk reaction to the escalating violence against children, the CPC draft actually takes a more holistic look at children’s welfare and safety.

As a source from the ministry explains, the policy aims to make the society a child-safe and child-friendly place.

“It will work as a guideline for all, not just organisations that work directly with children, such as related NGOs or schools, but also shopping complexes, companies, uniformed bodies and others.”

Lee Swee Seng, a board member of Focus on the Family, an NGO working on strengthening family ties, believes that having a CPC might compel companies to look into the family welfare of their employees.

“Now in most families, both parents are forced to work, creating a growing trend of latchkey kids. It will definitely help if companies can provide crèches at their workplace. Or if they can’t afford that, have a resource-sharing scheme to provide childcare facilities for their employees’ children. They should realise that worry-free employees will increase productivity.”

Malaysian Child Resources Institute (MCRI) adviser Ruth Liew agrees.

“Parents think that their primary school age children are wise enough to take care of themselves when they leave them at home alone. Many children were latchkey children before the term was even coined. We definitely need more affordable facilities for before and after school programmes. Keeping children in school longer is not the solution. We need proper and well-facilitated places to take in our primary school children when they are not in school.”

Shelter executive director James Nayagam also lauds the move.

He says having a written policy on keeping children safe and providing guidelines on the appropriate behaviour towards them will help to ensure that everyone fulfils their duty to protect them.

“Adults are the main protectors. Therefore they not only need to be sensitised to the rights of the child, but also need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to protect and prevent them from harm,” he says.

Lacking parenting skills?

As MCRI’s Liew points out, the changing world intensifies the role of the parents as their children’s protector.

“The population has increased and there are many stress-related problems in our society. Violence in the world has escalated tremendously and life values have dropped.

“However, when it comes to child care, many parents are still stuck in the ‘good old days’,” says Liew, who believes that many parents still think their children are safe enough to be left by themselves.

After the tragic case of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, the authorities issued cautions and warning for parents to be more vigilant of their children. But despite such warnings, another nine-year-old girl was brutally raped, sodomised and murdered recently. It was reported that the girl, Preeshena Varshiny, had been left home alone and with no means to contact her parents.

While the question of parents’ negligence is still open for debate, it has given rise to another prevalent issue – are parents today seriously lacking parenting skills?

Liew disputes the notion.

“Children’s safety is more than just parenting skills. There’s a lot of common sense in knowing how to keep children safe. I just wish that more parents are able to anticipate dangers in their children’s lives,” she says.

Assoc Prof Dr Aili Hanim Hashim, head of the Psychiatry Adolescent and Child (PAC) Unit at the Department of Psychological Medicine, University Malaya Medical Centre, agrees.

“What I find worrying is that many parents simply have no notion of danger. And it is not only happening in the urban areas where you can blame eroding values and escalating crime. Take the group of kindergarten children who drowned in Butterworth after they were allowed to play on their own by the river. Where were the parents?”

Prof Dr Aili Hanim believes that parents need to be equipped to provide a safe and good life for their children, and this comes not only in the form of monetary aid.

“The Government needs to look at ways to raise public awareness on good parenting and child protection. Perhaps parenting skills should be made a compulsory component in the marriage courses we have,” she suggests.

More importantly, parents need to spend more time with their children, she adds.

“Most parents use the television as their children’s minder or as the family activity. They think that they are spending quality time with their children because they are watching TV together.”

Lee agrees, saying that other phenomena have developed with the advent of technology– the Handphone Orphan or the Blackberry Orphan – where parents spend more time on their gadgets instead of their children even when together.

“It is important for parents to bond with their children – do more things together, even show them their working place so that the children will know more about them and not feel estranged from them,” he says.

The Government can also look into providing flexi hours for parents to allow them to spend more time at home, such as the proposed extended leave for mothers, he adds.

Ultimately, says Liew, the Government needs to take the lead in making the world safe for children, such as providing more funding to programmes that conduct personal safety for children.

“Only then will everyone follow suit. Parents will eventually be convinced that they should also focus their attention on children’s personal safety. There has to be a programme in every corner of every housing area and in every school. For starters, personal safety education should be part of the school curriculum,” she notes.

* Name has been changed

Related Story:
Protecting children’s rights

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