PUTRAJAYA: The Legal Affairs Division , Prime Minister’s Department and the Education Ministry (MOE) will work together to hold awareness campaigns as a strategy to tackle the lack of reported sexual crimes against children.
A joint statement by Minister in Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said (pix) and Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek issued today stated that one of the biggest challenges the government currently faces was the lack of reported sexual crimes against children and that a meeting would be held today.
“It (the awareness campaign) will be spread across the country with the goal of stressing the duty of every individual to report the sexual abuse of children,” the ministers said, adding that it was a crime to fail to report such crimes under Section 19 of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.
The awareness campaigns will involve ‘training of trainers’ approach, with teachers and community leaders being educated in detecting and reporting sexual abuse against children that occur in confines of schools effectively.
The minsters also said that statistics from 2017 to 2023 showed a worrying rising trend, with a total of 6,990 reported victims, and 1,570 cases in 2023 alone. The majority of victims were between 13 and 15, with 110 cases involving children under 6 in 2023 while police statistics indicate over 80 per cent of sexual crimes against children involved individuals known to the victim.
“Therefore, every member of the community plays an important role to protect our children from the threat of sexual abuse that seems to be on the rise,” the ministers said. –Bernama
