One illegitimate baby in S’gor every 18 minutes
By Hemananthani Sivanandam, The Sun
SHAH ALAM (April 1, 2001): An illegitimate child is born in the state of Selangor about every 18 minutes, according to the state’s statistics.
State executive councillor Datuk Dr Hassan Ali said the figures showed that up to 2008, some 250,000 children have been born out of wedlock in the state.
Hassan, however, was unable to provide the exact figures as many cases have gone unreported.
“Those who come and record the births are much lower compared to those who don’t but from what we have, we see that every day, about 83 cases are registered,” said Hassan at the state assembly today.
He said this in reply to Dr Abd Rani Osman (PAS-Meru) who had asked to state the number of illegitimate children registered in the state and the steps taken by the state to curb this problem.
Hassan said some of the factors for the high number of illegitimate children could be lack of education, lack of parental supervision and the influence by friends and television.
Hassan, who is also Selangor PAS commissioner and exco in charge of Muslim Affairs, Malay Customs, Infrastructure and Public Amenities, admitted that it was difficult to curb the matter as there were shortage of manpower in authorities, such as the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais).
He added the ratio was one officer to 25,000 people in the state.
“This is something to worry about and I hope the state government allocates more officers to Jais to enable them solve this issues,” he said.
Hassan added that with the increase in manpower, it would be easier for Jais to monitor especially in budget hotels, massage parlour and other entertainment outlets in the state.
“Once this was done, I would also suggest to Jais to set up a special task force to handle this matter,” he said.
Meanwhile, exco in charge of Education, Higher Education and Human Resources Development committee, Dr Halimah Ali said the state government has allocated RM1 million to handle social ills.
She said the allocation would be done accordingly from the district level through various awareness campaigns.
“This involves local councils and of course parents should play a big part in this,” said Halimah.
