Paedophilia victims need support

SHAH ALAM - Teenagers and children who are victims of paedophilia can act out of consideration including committing suicide or hurting others if left without proper help and support.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Psychology & Human Well-Being (Psitra) Senior Lecturer Associate Prof Dr Khadijah Alavi said the action was due to the influence of prolonged traumatic stress faced by the victims.

"Injuring others, killing oneself or locking oneself up, even depression can lead to death.

"That's the last stage. Before that, the victim will fall into taking drugs, alcohol, sniffing glue or be involved in any negative activities in order to get rid of their trauma.

"If they are left alone without support from family and any party, then they will fall into many more social problems," she told Sinar Harian.

Meanwhile, Khadijah said victims of sexual harassment including those under age would be taken to the hospital for trauma treatment procedures or better known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"In any hospital, there is a special scanning procedure officer for child abuse cases.

"So with some intervention and counselling, the victim's trauma can be reduced and prevented before it gets worse, affecting their mental health. All kinds of things can happen to children if they don't get PTSD treatment," she said.

Khadijah said victims of sexual harassment would also undergo a one-year counselling period to control and monitor the development of their mental health.

In addition, she said, the service was also provided to the families of victims to enable them as parents to provide moral support to their children.

"First, individual counselling is conducted and then do it in groups, so they have stages that children and families need to go through.

"We have test tools that we can see whether (victim's trauma) can heal or not, decrease or increase. If it's bad, maybe they will be admitted to a psychiatrist," she said.

Sinar Harian on Monday reported the case of paedophile criminals who harass teenagers and children were worrying, following several recent shocking incidents including the paedophile case at MRSM Tumpat, Kelantan.

Crime analyst Kamal Affandi Hashim said the strategy to combat paedophilia needs to be changed and not just tighten laws and punishments, but rather all parties need to ensure that criminals are blocked from gaining access to potential child victims.