Child protection personnel must be familiar with social law

SARIKEI: All parties tasked with child protection have to be well-versed in social law.

This is vital to enable them to formulate measures to prevent children from falling victim to social abuse and know exactly what course of action to take should cases of child abuse like under-aged marriage, family violence or sexual abuse of minors are referred to them.,

State Welfare Department head of Child Protection Section, Umadi Polot, stated this when he officiated at the closing ceremony of ‘ Bina Pasukan: Simulasi Kesedaran Undang-undang Social 2018’ programme organised by the Welfare Department that was held at a hotel here yesterday.

He considers inviting local community leaders to attend the programme as most appropriate as they are the first party to be approached by the community to address social problems in their respective areas.

The various agencies entrusted with similar role, the Police in particular, also consider community leaders as intermediary to channel useful information as well as to obtain feedback, he explained.

He acknowledged that the tasks of child protection had been made more challenging due to wide usage of social media to expose cases without taking into consideration the adverse implication on the victims and their families.

Therefore, he hoped the community leaders and agencies concerned could find measures to prevent occurrence of social problems in the community.

Over 30 local community leaders attended the programme conducted by State Police Contingent D11 staff Officer Jawai Francis Kempas and State Welfare Department Enforcement Section head Rohana Isnawi.

Also present were Sarikei Division welfare officer Tang Kee Lee and counsellor Ling Huong Huong, Temenggong Frederick Wong and Pemanca Datuk Janggu Banyang.