Child Abuse: Empower social workers and NGOs with funds, training - Unicef

SHAH ALAM - Social workers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should be empowered with funds and training as the rising number of child abuse cases is worrying.

Unicef Child Protection Chief Saskia Blume said that investment into the child protection system was crucial even in the current economic climate because social work was complex and emotionally impactful.

“Now, when we are talking about social workers that we are referring to, we have about 1,700 general social welfare officers in the country and out of those, only 213 are directly dealing with children’s cases, that is a very low number on a scale of child protection issues in this country.

“So I think it’s really important to think about, even in the current economic climate, investment in children also means investment into the child protection system,” Saskia said during the Sinar Daily’s Wacana English Edition talk show yesterday.

She stated that the number of social workers dealing with children’s cases was insufficient and the field had been pending for a long time.

“It’s just something the new government has set to take forward, which would be a big step in professionalising the workforce.

“It doesn’t have to be all on the government, we have strong NGOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that have a professional workforce and having that interaction and referral between them is really important. It needs to be put in place,” she said

Fellow panellist Yayasan Chow Kit founder Datuk Dr Hartini Zainudin also echoed Blume’s remark, adding that the country needed trained social workers to handle the children.

Hartini stated that the 213 social workers under the Women’s Ministry have to handle around 10 million children, and one government welfare officer is in charge of 13,000 kids per area.

“We don’t have enough social workers, never mind that we need trained social workers, and we do not have those who actually majored in the degree of social work.

“Again, if we say the priority is in children, investment is a prior urgency,” she said.

She stated that people had been talking about child abuse for a while now, and even after 20 years, many things still needed to be done.

“Stop pointing fingers, the numbers are rising, and now because of the pandemic and the fact that everybody has been cooped up for about two and a half years, kids have not been to school for 42 weeks, now we’re looking back at intervention and prevention and not talking about case management and what happens after, and it goes on and on.

“Again, I stress there is no accountability on the part of the abuses, stop slapping them on the wrists, they need to get thrown in jail,” Dr Hartini added.