KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 — Parents carry huge responsibility in ensuring their children are well-cared for, but unfortunately quite a number of them are not fit to be parents in the first place.

Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh said childcare is the most essential subject in this matter as it was important to develop the children’s skills from the earliest stage possible to make them successful adults.

“It’s about quality parenting. There are parents who abuse their child mentally and physically. We in the ministry have to go out and educate them.

“Proper education on childcare, vaccination, sex education are always the key,” she said during BFM Health and Living Junior 2018 town hall session organised by BFM Media Sdn Bhd here today.

Also present was Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, while BFM presenter Meera Sivasothy moderated the session.

Hannah said issues concerning children would continue to prolong if thorough action through strong enforcement was not taken immediately.

“Just look at the recent case where a boy was trapped inside a washing machine in Rawang, the suspect was believed to have ‘jokingly’ placed his nephew in the machine. This is not a joke. It’s about child safety.

“That is why I wanted the police to arrest the suspect, to send a strong message to such offenders that there is no compromise in any matter involving children. Same goes to those who leave their kids in car while going to the ATM or leave them home alone,” she said.

She added her ministry was now focusing more on sexual abuse, child education, child marriage, psychology aspects and also law enforcement to address such issues.

“Through the Social Welfare Department (JKM), we are also providing counselling services and psycho-education, available in eight venues at rural areas, and through Psychology Care Centre at PPR Sena, Perlis, PPR Taman Semarak, Tawau, Sabah and PPR Lembah Subang, Selangor,” she said.

Furthermore, Hannah stressed on the need of counsellors to assist those in need since there were only 7,951 registered counsellors available nationwide both in public and private sectors.

“We need to invest more in that, to train them because of the high demand, and the youngsters also need to consider psychology as their choice of tertiary education,” she added. — Bernama