‘Rich’ but malnourished

The Unicef report on children in low-cost flats deserves firmer and more informed responses.

LOOKING in through the gate of the single-storey terrace house, one would assume that the family living there had enough. After all, the house was in a booming industrial town, far from being rural, and had running water, sanitation and electricity.

Inside, a young girl sat crosslegged at the coffee table, her homework spread out with books spilling onto the floor. The TV blared alongside her – Dynasty, MacGyver, or her favourite, Jem and the Holograms – often accompanying her as she studied.

Neighbours used to visit her ailing grandfather for his advice or for air Yasin. The visits stopped when he finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s, necessitating more care from his wife, children and grandchildren.

There were three bedrooms in that small house. The furthest one, next to the kitchen, was for the ailing, elderly gentleman and his wife.

Next to the washing machine and dining table, the middle bedroom was occupied by the young girl and her brother and mother.

Her father slept there too whenever he was back from his army posts. Her uncle and his wife had the bedroom at the front of the house.

There was only one bathroom and one toilet. The kitchen was cramped at the back, but every time that young girl returned from boarding school for the school holidays, that kitchen felt like a mansion of love and care.

I was that girl. The house is still there, a reminder of a childhood hovering above what policymakers determined as the poverty line in the 1990s.

The recent United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report, “Children Without: A Study of Urban Child Poverty and Deprivation in Low-Cost Flats in Kuala Lumpur,” transported me back to my childhood.

The dismissal of the report by Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid only highlights the disconnect between policymakers and those who are supposed to benefit from the policies.

As reported by The Star, the minister told the Dewan Rakyat that the Government’s food programmes reach both urban and rural students.

He cited an internal study showing that the issue of child nutrition among schoolchildren “is not to a point where there are students who have no food to eat at all”.

Indeed, the Unicef report did not dispute this fact – 88% of the households surveyed have three to five meals per day – but instead highlighted the issue of malnutrition, where households were unable to afford nutrition-dense meals and lacked knowledge on nutrition, leading to a higher percentage of stunting among poor children.

Says the report: “In terms of stunting, Malaysian children perform worse than Ghana, despite Malaysia’s GDP per capita being six times higher.”

This shows that being “richer” overall does not necessarily translate into higher awareness of good nutrition.

The report’s policy recommendations include taxing sugar-sweetened beverages and providing a universal childcare allowance. This should be supplemented with a national programme on health and nutrition.

Urban poverty is neither new nor has it been under the radar.

The Unicef report says the children and households sampled in the study live in a data “blind” spot.

Although their average income is just above the urban poverty line, they cannot save money, afford any financial emergencies and buy highly-priced, nutrition-dense food. In short, they are not statistically defined as poor.

These are the details that require attention from our policymakers. Our ministers must not be blindsided by parliamentary questioning and neglect to study the report in detail.

The report is filled with personal narratives, photo essays, and yes, well-researched data and statistics. Media outlets have provided the necessary spotlight on this issue.

News website Asian Correspondent, for example, ran a hearttugging story of five young girls growing up in those flats.

To Ika, Ain, Hasinah, Arina, Hanisah, and many others like them, I wish to say that things will get better. Keep that flame of dreams alight, grab all the opportunities that arise and persevere.

I can’t promise that it will be easy, but from my own experience, the sense of achievement knowing that you have overcome so much is that much sweeter.

You will get to a point where you can help others like you, and I hope you will pay it forward.

These statistics, stories and more are not merely fictional narratives; they are real-life experiences.

One wonders what else is required to nudge our policymakers into caring?

We seem to be a country devoid of political will.

Dr Muhammed Abdul Khalid, the main author of the Unicef report, says it best: “We won’t be able to solve this issue, which will haunt us when the kids become adults (the TN50 generation), until we acknowledge that we have a problem. Denial won’t solve any problems.”

Adults must no longer be blinded by their political leanings.

They must take the necessary steps to ensure all Malaysian children will no longer be without.