By Amar Shah Mohsen
SHAH ALAM, Feb 28 — The state government will launch a safety campaign next month following recent cases of children dying after being left unattended in cars for hours.
“InsyaAllah, we will launch a campaign to address the issue of children’s safety in vehicles on March 21,” state executive councillor for welfare Anfaal Saari told the Selangor State Legislative Assembly today.
She was responding to a supplementary question from Amanah’s Meru state assemblyman Mariam Abdul Rashid on the recent incident of a five-year-old girl who died after she was found unconscious in her mother’s car, which was parked near the back door of Shah Alam Hospital on January 30.
Shah Alam District Police Chief ACP Mohd Iqbal Ibrahim said the police were informed of the matter by a medical officer at the hospital at 8.01pm the same day.
An investigation found the child’s mother, who works at the hospital, had left the girl in the car by accident. She had picked up her daughter at a nearby nursery at about 2pm before returning to work.
In November, a two-year-old girl died after being left in a vehicle for eight hours in Ara Damansara.
A month earlier, a similar incident happened to a 16-month-old girl in Terengganu.
Meanwhile, responding to Mariam’s original question, Anfaal said 146 cases of sexual abuse against children were recorded throughout 2023, according to police statistics.
A further 190 cases of neglect and 146 cases of abuse were also recorded during the same period.
As for statistics on the number of children involved in criminal activities, 588 cases were recorded by the police last year.
“The crime with the highest number of cases was rioting, with 138 individuals, followed by theft (112),” she said.
Various arrests were made for cases including murder, rape, molestation, unarmed robbery, theft, trespassing, and housebreaking.
“The highest number of arrests involving children aged 13 to 18 were for rioting, with 138, followed by theft, with 109,” Anfaal said.
