KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 ― Pre-employment screening must be made mandatory for all new hires working with children, Opposition lawmaker Charles Santiago said today amid growing reports of sexual assault against minors.

The Klang MP said the authorities need to conduct stringent background checks on jobseekers who would be working with children, like teachers, coaches and even volunteers.

"The current laws are not enough. We have to become more serious and strict.

"I call upon the government to make pre-employment screening mandatory for people who work with children,” he said in a press conference in Parliament.

The DAP man added that regulations to allow for the pre-screening to be made by authorities like the Education Ministry and police should be included in the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.

It was previously reported that there were over 12,987 cases of child sexual abuse in Malaysia from January 2012 to July this year.

Briton Richard Huckle who volunteered with local churches to teach English hogged headlines last year when police abroad discovered he had been grooming children as young as eight for sex for many years in Malaysia and other countries.

The latest paedophile case in Malaysia surfaced yesterday in which a former MIC branch leader who works as a teacher is alleged to have made had sex and made sexual advances to teenaged girls in return for getting them jobs.