‘I RAN AWAY TO MARRY MY BOYFRIEND’
She fled home at 15 for love and to escape poverty
SYAZEERA (not her real name) is a 23-year-old mother of two, who works as a babysitter here. Although her family lives in a small rented house in Jalan Telipot, she said she is happy and content.
Things were very different a few years ago. She was from a broken home and living with her grandmother in Mentakab, Pahang. Her father had abandoned her after her mother’s death.
When she was 15, she ran away from home after her grandmother objected to her marrying her boyfriend, who was three years her senior.
She said she did it for love and her intention to begin a new life.
“My boyfriend was three years older and we met after school without my grandmother’s knowledge.
“When she found out about us, she got upset because she wanted me to focus on my studies.
“I told her I wanted to marry him, but she refused to give her blessings and told me to end it. So, I decided to run away.”
Syazeera said living in poverty was one of the reasons she decided to follow her boyfriend.
“We were very poor. My grandmother received monthly aid from the Welfare Department and that was where I got my allowance, but it was never enough.”
She said her boyfriend promised her a better future, as his father had a stable job as a government employee.
“I followed him to Kelantan. We got married near the MalaysianThai border through a Thai marriage agency.”
Kelantan police said they recorded an average of more than 100 missing persons cases each year.
Investigations into the cases also revealed that many teenage girls ran away from home to be with their boyfriends, said state police chief Datuk Hasanuddin Hassan.
He said the girls were mostly aged between 16 and 18.
“In the past two years (2017 and 2018), police have recorded more than 220 cases of missing persons.
“That’s an average of more than 100 cases a year.”
He said police had opened investigation papers into all cases.
Of the figure, 207 cases had been solved, he said.
“Thirty-nine of the cases involved teenage girls who followed their boyfriends after being persuaded by their sweet talk.”
He said another reason why teenagers ran away from home was domestic issues, such as being strict parenting and family problems.
He said police had opened 11 investigation papers into missing persons this year. Of this, two cases have been solved.
Attempts to get comments from the state Religious Affairs Department and state Welfare Department on the issue have been futile.