Say no to child grooming, UiTM students create awareness, signs of grooming among teenagers

Focus

By KOUSALYA SELVAM

12 Jan 2023 04:45pm

Form one and form two students from the school were choosen mainly to ensure young teenagers were aware of what child grooming actually was, the impact of child grooming and to curb the activity.

SHAH ALAM - Students from UiTM Shah Alam takes the initiative to curb child grooming by organising an event to help students' recognise the signs and introduce measures to hinder such activities.

The programme titled "SeeHeRe: See it, Hear it, Report it" was conducted on Jan 10 by final year Interpersonal Communication students from the Media and Communications faculty at SM Sains Hulu Selangor.

Project leader Muhammad Imran Ishak said said according to Unicef Malaysia, at least 1,500 children in Malaysia marry every year, hence the event aimed to educate the students to recognise signs of being groomed and introduce steps that could be taken if they were in a similar situation.

He believed that creating awareness could help society with social issues.

“SeeHeRe is an extremely crucial event to help teach the children of our generation the unpleasant meaning behind child grooming and to prevent this issue from ravaging the children of the future," he said in a statement.

At the event, over 300 students from form one and form two were chosen mainly to ensure young teenagers were aware of what child grooming was, the impact of child grooming and to curb the activity

Among the activities that took place during SeeHeRe was an exhibition, informative talks and forums as well as an explorace titled ‘Explorace: Generation Intelligence’.

One of the students who attended the event lauded the initiative, exposing them to new knowledge they were unaware of.

“There really is so much more for us, as young teenagers to learn about child grooming, and SeeHeRe has exposed us to so many things that we were unaware of.

“I hope more events will touch on topics like these in the future,” the student said.

The event saw experts from Federation of Reproductive Health Associations Malaysia (FRHAM) Dr Kamal Kenny and Dr Siti Sarah Saaey as well as Sexual Crime Investigation Division representative Assistant Superintendent Ellyia Ullfah shared their insights on the issue.

Also present were Acting Interpersonal Communication Course Coordinator Sharifah Yuliana Syed Ali Hanafiah and lecturer Norhayati Baba.