By 
Nabil Ruhaizat
Yan Krukau/Pexels, 4th July, 2021
The Malaysian Bar has urged the government to step up supervision of care centres following confirmed abuse at a children’s home in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.
The arrest of a couple operating a children’s home in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, has again illustrated a weakness in Malaysia’s care infrastructure. Eighteen children were rescued from the unlicensed home following reports of physical and psychological abuse, including allegations from an 18-year-old who claimed he was slapped and verbally assaulted for disobedience. Malaysian law enforcement confirmed two further reports corroborating the abuse, prompting immediate action under the Child Act 2001 and eventual closure of the facility.
In response, Malaysian Bar President Mohamad Ezri Abdul Wahab has urged the government to confront what he called “systemic weaknesses in monitoring and enforcement”. The Bar President warned that unless Malaysia addresses the structural failures that enable unregistered care centres to operate without accountability, abuse cases in childcare homes will become a persistent and inevitable issue.
The Bar President called for routine audits of both registered and unregistered care centres, citing the need for an integrated enforcement mechanism rather than the reliance on ad hoc inspections. “Unregistered care centres should not be allowed to operate unchecked”, he said, arguing that rights-based governance cannot co-exist with gaps in the compliance system.
The Bar’s proposal includes certified training programmes for all care workers, a national public reporting system for complaints, and regular visits made by boards appointed under the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development. These measures aim to standardise the quality of care across all facilities in Malaysia.
In a strongly worded statement, Bar president Mohamad Ezri Abdul Wahab underscored that the current situation was not an isolated incident but part of a wider pattern of institutional failure. As a country that strives to improve its upholding of human rights, “Malaysia should not allow unregistered care centres to continue operating without supervision and without being held to minimum standards”, he said.
Fortunately, the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development has relocated the children involved in this case. Meanwhile, the Bar’s demands raise questions about how many more centres operate without licences and oversight from state bodies and how long this issue is allowed to continue in Malaysia.
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