When babies have babies

Fong said that instead of expelling the students, the state committee should seek the cooperation of the Welfare Department as students needed counselling and advice against acts which led to sexual intercourse and pregnancy.

Womenacirc;euro;trade;s rights activists too were quick to react to the Kedah committeeacirc;euro;trade;s ill-advised recommendation. Some even said that pregnant schoolgirls should be given a year off from school after giving birth instead of being punished.

Expelling them would only encourage the students to abort or abandon their babies, which was hardly a role model that Malaysian mothers-to-be in the next millenium could emulate.

One suggestion was that after giving birth to the baby, the schoolgirl should be allowed to give up her child for adoption and resume her education so that she could be re-integrated into the social mainstream.

Deputy Chairperson of the Malaysian Chinese Associationacirc;euro;trade;s Wanita wing, Tan Yee Kew, slammed the Kedah Education Committee for the acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;cruel and unacceptableacirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; suggestion of expelling pregnant students.

acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;It amounts to sexual discrimination against women, especially minors,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; she pointed out. She was particularly concerned about the fate of teenage pregnancy resulting from rape. Her contention was the problem would be further compounded if these vulnerable students were also deprived of an education.

She was more flexible about the committeeacirc;euro;trade;s suggestion to allow school heads to order pregnancy tests on suspected students. Tan felt the idea was acceptable provided it was aimed at helping a student, and not as a punitive measure.

acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;The test must be conducted discreetly, without subjecting the student to an embarrassing situation,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; she said.

The consensus was that all care must be taken to ensure that the young girls were not subjected to a social stigma. All Womenacirc;euro;trade;s Action Society AWAM administrator Zaitun Mohamed Kasim said that pregnancy tests would violate basic human rights.

acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;Such punitive measures show a lack of a sense of caring and would merely intimidate those already afraid and in trouble,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; she pointed out.

Womenacirc;euro;trade;s groups in the country have urged the government to conduct an in-depth study into the circumstances under which the girls became pregnant as the issue was part of a bigger social problem.

Adopting a simplistic approach, as the Kedah State Committee had sought to do, would only exacerbate the issue, they felt. They have recommended that the school initiate positive steps such as sex education classes which would apprise the girls of the implications of teenage pregnancy.

Indeed, education is one of the key strategies deployed to raise the status of women in Malaysian. Jaya Partiban, Secretary of the Wanita wing of the Malaysian Indian Congress, revealed that it was the most effective tool in altering the male chauvinist attitudes that permeated the community.

Problems such as wife-battering, widely prevalent in the Malaysian Indian community, could only be resolved in the long term through a change in the mindset of the men, something that would hopefully come about as the newer generation raised their level of educational attainment?