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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Parents alone can't prevent child molestation
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Monday's Forum Online letter, 'Parents should not abdicate their responsibility to kids' by Mr Kenneth Lim Ming Jin, who was replying to last Saturday's letter, 'Practise zero tolerance against child molesters' by Ms Boey Shee Lye. Mr Lim's view worries me.
In the case of the six-year-old boy who was molested in the toilet of a neighbourhood library, it is pertinent to remember that he had been there on a visit with his mother.
Why was not his father there? Could he have been working? Could the child have been from a single-parent household?
Would Mr Lim have rather the mother accompany her young son into the male public toilet?
Granted she could have let him use the female public toilet instead, but can mothers continue this practice with eight-, 10- and 12-year-olds?
The United States National Data Analysis System estimates that 12.3 children in every thousand were abused and maltreated in the country in 2005. This is a nation with over 72 million children under the age of 18. And these were only reported cases.
Who could have highlighted these children's plight if not for the alertness of random strangers or caring neighbours?
As a parent of a 10-month-old boy, I worry ceaselessly about the world he will grow up in.
The prevention of any crime is not the responsibility of the police alone. And especially where children are concerned, it is the moral duty and social responsibility of the community at large to exercise all the more diligence.
Why? Because we are all stakeholders in the world's future. Our children are our future.
Mariana Jumari (Ms)
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Monday's Forum Online letter, 'Parents should not abdicate their responsibility to kids' by Mr Kenneth Lim Ming Jin, who was replying to last Saturday's letter, 'Practise zero tolerance against child molesters' by Ms Boey Shee Lye. Mr Lim's view worries me.
In the case of the six-year-old boy who was molested in the toilet of a neighbourhood library, it is pertinent to remember that he had been there on a visit with his mother.
Why was not his father there? Could he have been working? Could the child have been from a single-parent household?
Would Mr Lim have rather the mother accompany her young son into the male public toilet?
Granted she could have let him use the female public toilet instead, but can mothers continue this practice with eight-, 10- and 12-year-olds?
The United States National Data Analysis System estimates that 12.3 children in every thousand were abused and maltreated in the country in 2005. This is a nation with over 72 million children under the age of 18. And these were only reported cases.
Who could have highlighted these children's plight if not for the alertness of random strangers or caring neighbours?
As a parent of a 10-month-old boy, I worry ceaselessly about the world he will grow up in.
The prevention of any crime is not the responsibility of the police alone. And especially where children are concerned, it is the moral duty and social responsibility of the community at large to exercise all the more diligence.
Why? Because we are all stakeholders in the world's future. Our children are our future.
Mariana Jumari (Ms)
