FIVE ministries will work together to safeguard children’s welfare with the help of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

The Health, Education, Rural Development, Home and Women, Family and Community Development Ministries will come up with a framework to develop a national Children’s Wellbeing Roadmap.

“This inter-ministerial meeting was called to coordinate as well as express our political will and determination to get to the bottom of these problems,” Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said at her office in Putrajaya today. 

She said there was a need to develop a more integrated approach in dealing with stunted children in the country, as it boiled down to more than just a health issue, as the social dimension played a role as well.

“We can’t claim to be a caring society if we ignore and neglect those who are most in need of care. 

“We can’t talk about developing a better future if between one in three and one in four of our children live in poor conditions,” she said.

Dr Wan Azizah, who is also women, family and community development minister, said they aimed to finalise the roadmap in a month. 

She added that instead of the government constantly giving to charities, the crux of the issues ought to be addressed and dealt with at its root.

“We have to move from being charitable to sustainable,” she said. 

With her was Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, Unicef representative Amjad Rabi, Rural Development Minister Rina Harun, Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar and political secretaries from the ministries. 

A Unicef report titled Children Without: A study of urban child poverty and deprivation in low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur, which was published on February 26, stated that children living in low-cost flats were deprived in terms of nutrition, education, safety and other living conditions. 

The study is a measure of government programmes for the urban poor.

It found that 34% of children under the age of 5 in Kelantan faced stunted growth, followed by Terengganu and Pahang (26%) and Putrajaya, Perak, Sabah & Labuan (24%).

Stunted growth in children in Sarawak was 23%, followed by Perlis (21%), Penang (20%), Negri Sembilan (19%), Kedah (18%), Malacca (14%), Johor (12%) and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (11%). – June 21, 2018.