LETTERS: Nov 18 marks the newly inaugurated World Day for the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence.
As we commemorate this date, we want to draw attention to the Social Work Profession Bill.
For over five decades, the Malaysian Association of Social Workers has done everything in its power to professionalise social work.
This is something our country has taken lightly for far too long, considering the bill has been in the drafting stage since 2010.
To put into perspective how far behind Malaysia is, social work has been regulated in the Philippines since 1965, Singapore since 2009, Thailand since 2013, and Indonesia since 2019.
In the meantime, the number of child sexual abuse cases grows each year.
Between 2020 and 2022, the Social Welfare Department recorded 18,750 cases of child abuse.
Who knows how many more cases went unreported?
Yet there is still no regulation for our work, and with subpar wages, the number of social workers is declining.
In Malaysia, there is one social worker for every 8,576 people.
However, Singapore has one social worker for every 3,025 people and the United States has one social worker for every 490 people.
The Women's Centre for Change (WCC), which was set up in 1985, is dedicated to helping sexually abused children and their families heal and get justice.
We provide counselling to help the families understand what the children have been through, and we show them how they can provide support to extremely vulnerable children.
We also assist families with lodging police reports and following up on them.
The collaboration between WCC, One Stop Crisis Centre and six government hospitals in Penang means that sexually abused victims can get counselling support.
Once the case is in court, we guide them through the process and make sure they know their rights.
We attend court sessions to ensure support for the children and their families.
Having seen so much pain and trauma in our line of work, we focus on preventive measures via education and raising awareness.
Training is given to doctors, teachers, and the police on how to identify signs of child sexual abuse.
When children are afraid to speak up or are unaware of what has befallen them, it is our duty as adults to keep an eye out for anything malicious.
We also educate children about good and bad touches, good and bad secrets, and identify adults they can trust.
The trauma that child sexual abuse victims have to deal with is life-changing and revictimisation is possible if they are not supported through this vulnerable time.
We also educate the families on how abuse and grooming happen and how to get the children to trust again.
We help them identify and address any dysfunction in the family that can worsen the children's situation and emphasise the importance of fostering a healthy environment for the children's development.
Our work is tough on us physically, emotionally and mentally. Every decision we make impacts our clients' lives profoundly. But all this is not acknowledged.
We are not seen as professionals but as volunteers.
The Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry states that the bill will also focus on establishing a register for professional social workers.
There will be requirements to fulfil, such as obtaining a certification of practice that will be supervised by a regulatory body.
This will lead to greater accountability and quality of social work, better salaries, more funding to fight for our causes, recognition of our hard work, and more people joining the workforce.
In other words, it would be a huge burden lifted off of our shoulders when the Social Work Profession Bill is tabled.
We want to help more people overcome their trauma and challenges so they can lead better lives, and the tabling of this bill is the crux of that.
SALMA FARHANAH
Social Worker, Women's Centre for Change, Penang
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times