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By Shikin Louis
KUCHING, Aug 19: The female infant abandoned in Moyan, Batu Kawa, yesterday (Aug 18) is the second baby dumping case recorded in Sarawak this year.
The first case was recorded on June 16, which also took place in the Kuching district, where a female baby was discovered dead at an estimated age of four months and seven days.
According to Sarawak Minister of Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, the statistics of baby dumping cases have shown a decreasing trend ever since the establishment of One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) in 2014 to address teenage pregnancies in Sarawak.
“When we first started, there were 2,481 cases of teenage pregnancies recorded in 2016, and our objective was to reduce the number of cases by at least 10 per cent.
“Now in 2022, (teenage pregnancy cases) are about 1,005, so you can see that there’s a reduction,” she said during the International Chinese Muslim Conference 2023 held at Waterfront Hotel today.
Based on the statistics on baby dumping cases, 2016 recorded 10 cases, followed by four cases in 2017, 10 cases in 2018, five cases each in 2019 and 2020, 10 cases in 2021, and six cases in 2022.
Fatimah further said through OSTPC, social intervention programmes are conducted, such as Awareness and Advocacy of Sexual Education (KAPS) and Wacana Bestari (Insightful Talk).
She explained that efforts done by the Committee were not in any way encouraging pre-marital sex but rather to prevent the worst-case scenario—the death of the pregnant teenager or her baby.
She also mentioned that her ministry had previously worked with KPJ Kuching Specialist Hospital, which had set up the State’s first baby hatch, but the service is temporarily unavailable as the hospital had moved to a new location and is still looking for a suitable location to resume the baby hatch operation.
Meanwhile, Borneo Medical Centre is currently in the final stage of setting up a baby hatch at its premises. — DayakDaily
