The Children Statistics Malaysia 2025 released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) today shows a 12.7 per cent rise in children requiring care and protection, a higher increase in boys needing protection compared to girls.
The total numbers of children in need of care and protection for are 9,624 (6,031 girls and 3,593 boys). While this data appears alarming, we need to recognise that these are reported numbers not prevalence numbers.
Reports are children in need of care and protection (abused or neglected) that we become aware of – reported to the authorities. Prevalence is the total number of children in need of care and protection in our country. Most are hidden or undetected.
Prior prevalence studies that I and other colleagues have conducted over many years show that the prevalence of child abuse exceeds 10 per cent of all children for sexual abuse and 25 per cent for physical abuse.
The real number of children in need of care and protection in 2025 exceeds 900,000 (using DOSM’s figure of 9.03 million children under the age of 18 years and the minimum 10 per cent sexual abuse rates). Hence, we have only identified a very small minority of children who are in need of protection.
The rise seen in the data is probably due to better public awareness and reporting and governmental agency detection and not a real increase in numbers in the community. This is to be expected with the increased media attention that abused children have received recently.
International studies have shown that the underreporting of abuse among boys is a well-recognised issue, particularly regarding sexual abuse. Boys are less likely to disclose abuse due to many socio-cultural factors (stigma, shame and societal masculine norms).
It would be good to see the detailed data from DOSM before making any inferences but a higher increase in boys needing protection compared to girls could be due to changing norms in reporting.
A comprehensive prevention programme must include the following:
- Educating all children on their rights, including those who are disabled.
- Children must be aware of their rights and provided with the safety skills to identify, avoid, and report abuse or exploitation. This includes supervision and training about online safety.
- We require extensive input into encouraging positive parenting, enabling parents to have good discipline, avoid physical punishment and verbal abuse, and have mechanisms to deal with stress. We need a significant growth in support services like counselling, childcare and financial assistance to reduce family stress.
- Public awareness campaigns that teach the signs of child abuse and empower people to report it need to be ongoing with a widespread reach.
While much of what we see in DOSM’s Children Statistics 2025 on abuse is probably better reporting, this should not stop us from pursuing better detection and prevention programmes.
Malaysia has yet to embark on a serious community-wide programme to prevent child abuse. Any single child abused is one too many.
Dr Amar-Singh HSS is a consultant paediatrician and child disability activist.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
