PETALING JAYA, Nov 17 ― Over three out of five Malaysian children polled have urged adult leaders to eradicate racism and discrimination, as well as gender-based violence such as rape, sexual violence and child marriage.
In a survey of over 1,000 local children by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) released on Tuesday, the issues ranked among the top five most pressing concerns of those polled, along with ensuring quality education, ending all violence, and ending poverty and world hunger.
When asked to pick eight issues that they would prioritise for every child if they were the head of the UN, 76 per cent of the girls picked “ending racism and discrimination and making sure every child is treated fairly”.
Only “quality education for every child, including children with disabilities, refugee and migrant children” received more votes than the abovementioned issue among girls.
Meanwhile for boys, “ending poverty and world hunger” received the most votes, followed by “ending all forms of violence against children including bullying and corporal punishment”.
Among children who prefered to not state their gender, ending gender-based violence was the top pick, receiving votes from 76 per cent of the group.
When it came to how they felt about the world and their future, the results were mixed. Only one-fifth said they were “hopeful”, another one-fifth “looking forward to it”, followed by “worried or concerned”.
However, queried about how children can help achieve a better world, a whopping eight out of ten of them agreed to be kind and respectful to one another regardless of race, religion, sex or disability.
The next top answer was to reach out and make friends with children from a different background, picked by two-thirds of the respondents.
The Children4Change Survey was done together with non-profit arts group Kakiseni. It had polled 1,036 children aged six to 17 years old across the country between September 29 and October 28 this year.
It was done ahead of World Children’s Day, which was established by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, to mark the day it adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Child in 1959 and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989.
Malaysia ratified the CRC on 1995 with several reservations. Putrajaya has since lifted some of them, but not those on, among others, non-discrimination and the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, claiming they do “not conform with the Constitution, national laws and national policies of the Government of Malaysia, including the Shariah law.”
