SHAH ALAM, March 6 — Puppets are primarily used to entertain children.
But sometimes, adults turn to them to get a serious message like abuse across.
A group of university students from the School of Communication and Creative Arts in KDU University College has come up with a puppetry show for schoolchildren to equip them with skills and body safety knowledge that will lessen the likelihood of them becoming victims of sexual abuse.
The Child Registry database shows that there were over 22,000 child sexual abuse cases between 2010 and May 2017 in Malaysia.
Led by three communication, psychology and performing arts lecturers, the campaign aims to encourage pupils to speak up about their feelings and unjust situations.
Senior lecturer Murina Pawanteh, who started the movement, said she had the idea after some of her friends told her about child sexual abuse incidents by adults.
“I have heard of incidents where adults inappropriately touched the schoolchildren and told them to keep it as a secret,” Murina said.
Shaken by the severity of issue, Murina and her public relations students came up with the fun campaign to create awareness about sexual abuse incidents and also educate the primary school children, their parents and teachers on how to deal with such cases.
She said it was difficult for children to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour of an adult towards them.
Hence, this was why most of the incidents do not come to the attention of the children’s parents or teachers at school.
“Throughout the show, we will define what constitutes inappropriate sexual behaviour by adults and also highlight skills for a healthy relationship such as communication and boundary-setting for children,”she said.
The two-hour programme will include a puppetry show and a music performance to educate the children about their private parts and highlight examples of inappropriate sexual behaviours towards them.
Following the puppetry show, the puppeteers will then interact with the pupils to address the issues related to the campaign theme and answer questions from the students.
It will also feature two plays dubbed Five Safety Networks and Circle of Love to teach the children who to approach in case of apparent sexual abuse incidents.
School of Communication and Creative Arts head Muhammad Zaki Samsudin said the high prevalence of child abuse cases was alarming and prevention was needed.
To do this, he said the schools, authorities and community must join hands in a national effort to not only educate the children but also have strong enforcement and laws to identify and deal with the perpetrators.
“It is imperative to equip the children with proper guidelines on how to safeguard themselves from the culprits," he said.
“We must also educate the children about their rights and actions to take when it comes to sexual abuse."
The campaign kicks off this Friday at SK Petaling Jaya and will also run on March 15 and 22 at SK Sri Petaling Jaya and SK Bukit Bintang Boys 2 respectively.
