CHILD-rearing in Malaysia, at least for some parents, has a violent trait: smacking, caning or assaulting badly-behaved children.
For them, this punishment is permissible, even favourable. The triggers could be as benign as refusing to complete homework or hanging out with village bad hats, or missing compulsory prayers. Out comes the clothes hanger or cane, and if nothing else is handy, the hand, fist or leg will suffice.
The battered children may bawl in agony, but they have been taught to accept these harsh sanctions. This abrasive approach has been perpetuated over generations. In brandishing the weaponry, even a new generation of parents seems unaffected by progressive ideals, which they scoffed as Western "yellow culture".
This tyrannical custom went geopolitical 10 years ago in Sweden: a Tourism Malaysia employed husband and wife, low-level employees without diplomatic immunity, were convicted in a Stockholm court of beating their children with a bamboo stick and clothes hanger.
Despite serving prison terms and professing to "respect" the Swedish laws that convicted them, the couple remained unrepentant, insisting that the beating was "educational". But there have been cases of parental abuse so reprehensible that they inadvertently killed the child, which were tragically abetted by family silence, community apathy and law enforcement's unhurried response.
Consider these grim statistics: last year, the Welfare Department reported 7,532 cases of child neglect and abuse, an increase of 762 compared with 2022. That's a lot of tormented kids.
Alarmed by this worrisome upswing, the government deployed the Kasih Kanak-Kanak child protection advocacy programme in 60 schools affecting 60,000 students. The programme's two-pronged mission educates minors to gird up self-protection and seek help, and teaches them that their perpetrators' abuse or neglect is a criminal offence.
Let's be real: anti-child abuse programmes may be hopeless when the monsters lurk within a hand-swinging, neck-wringing and body-whacking distance. Besides, the children will be too guilt-ridden and intimidated to expose their parents because they still love them despite the abuse. Neglect and abuse don't occur in a void: historically, it has been "systemic", evidenced by the offending parents' candour of self-denial. If there's a serious anti-child abuse programme to be forced upon, it is an edification on all parents, particularly those raising toddlers to primary school-going kids, the most vulnerable lot.
While we are at it, also impose a special literacy on certain types of teachers who think nothing of torturing minors with a heatstroke. These deviant teachers should consider themselves fortunate if they face a disciplinary inquest rather than a criminal charge or parental suit.
Good luck though on overcoming the fog of "political and cultural correctness" shrouding and shielding these aggressors. It's easier to beat the living daylights out of children than reforming centuries of inhumane civilisational mores.