Sabah, Labuan tops in 'below-height' kids
Published on: Friday, November 21, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: The stunting rate in Sabah is a cause for concern, the recent Seminar on Rights & Issues of Women and Children was told.Going by the stunting rates in Malaysia by State, Sabah and Labuan Federal Territory top the list at 19.8, followed by Terengganu (19.4) and Kelantan (18.9). Fourth-placed is Sarawak (16.6).A Unicef representative, Maya Fachrani Faisal revealed this at the Forum on Protecting the Rights of Women and Children: How far have we achieved? For example, a five-year-old child in Malaysia is short for his or her age when compared with a child of the same age in Thailand, who is taller.
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"Stunting rates are quite high in Sabah and Labuan (combined), higher than the national average. This situation is still very much a challenge in Sabah. It is a cause for concern as stunting can actually trigger overweight children."So when a child has not reached a certain height for his or her age, then it can contribute to obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension," she told the participants.According to Maya, Malaysia has also recorded the highest rate of obesity in the region, yet another major issue in the country.Emphasising the need to address stunting, she said the sooner the better because not only will it lead to under-nutrition but also over-nutrition.
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She warned that stunting consequences last through a lifetime, saying it has negative consequences beyond short adult height."It affects brain development which in turn lowers school achievement and economic productivity in adulthood. It is also associated with low birth weight of children whose mothers were stunted as children," she said.
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Against this backdrop, the Unicef representative threw a challenge to the participants to rectify the situation and improve the lives of the Under 18 population in Sabah, totalling 1.25 million. (The United Nations defines a child as one who is below the age of 18)."We all come from different areas – ministries, academia, police, the UN and NGOs – and this seminar provides a platform for us to integrate and cross-fertilise."Start a dialogue to discuss what you have learned today on rights of children. You are the experts and you'd know what is best for Sabah. Children need protection not just from abuse but also from economic hardship."You can be living in a household somewhere in Sabah. Perhaps you have enough to survive on a weekly basis but if something happens, you may suddenly become unable to survive. You don't have economic protection because you don't have income stability for an adequate standard of living," she elaborated.The seminar was organised by the Sabah Women's Advisory Council (MPWS) Legal Committee. Senior lawyer Mary Florence Gomez chaired the forum.Maya stressed that every child should be given an opportunity to live and grow up in a family, cautioning that when there is domestic violence in the household, it will affect the child's wellbeing."Therefore, we must make sure that as a family, we are able to continue with providing the best and in the best interest of the child."And this is where we can play a role in formulating the Social Policy for Children, she suggested. So how do we measure wellbeing, distribution and access of goods and services for children in social policy? Social policy primarily refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare.Citing the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Maya said a child's wellbeing in a country depends on four main dimensions – material, health, education, and care, safety and protection. This, she added, is a holistic way of looking at children, instead of being regarded as just individuals who have rights."Basic education is the first primary school years of a child. Health covers nutrition, breastfeeding and even reproductive health. Apparently, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development has implemented programmes covering care, safety and protection of children," she noted."Your Ministry of Health also gives food baskets to needy children in the community and those having under-nutrition problems. And in the field of education, the Education Ministry introduced the 1Malaysia Milk Programme and provided hostel facilities for rural students from remote areas in Sabah and Sarawak."Maya was impressed with the Malaysian Government's social and economic programmes like 1Azam (Poverty Eradication) and BR1M for vulnerable members of the community, including the disabled and orphans.Still, she posed this question – "How far have we achieved" – to the participants. While Malaysia has striven to combat poverty and brought down the overall poverty rate, she argued that child poverty is always higher and rightfully so because in one household, you have an average of four people but in the poorer homes, you have more than four children in a household. "Hence vulnerability is higher among children, and that's why the pattern usually is double the rate of the overall poverty rate."The other observation is that even though Malaysia has a strong health delivery system, infant mortality in Sabah is reported as 4.2 per 1,000 births, "which means four children will die in the first year of life for every 1,000 live births in the State."In her conclusion, Maya introduced a framework for implementation of an effective and quality programme delivery system for child wellbeing."I'd encourage you to look at this framework on how it can help you in your respective spheres of work. So whether you are working in the community or you are working in a government agency or working on policy-making, planning and programme delivery, this framework helps to put in place how you want to see child wellbeing," she said.The proposed framework for child wellbeing delivery system has three components:l Participatory (from communities, children and other stakeholders involved) – what we really want is participation from children by including them in your programmes and involving them in the decision-making process.l Break the silos and increase multi-stakeholder engagement with NGOs and private sector for strengthening quality delivery of services – we want to encourage a more multi-stakeholder programme development and a more integrated approach involving the private sector. It is said that the private sector needs help and support from the community, the government and the different stakeholders to complement their work.l Invest in data, monitoring and evidence-based collection, and disseminate data regularly.Maya lamented that the stakeholders don't do enough for data collection as far as child wellbeing is concerned. "We talk so much that we need to do this, we need to do that. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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