2007 04: Focus on children: Insensitive handling of child-abuse issue

NST online. Letters. 24/04/07

By : L.G., Kuala Lumpur

IN a display of the worst kind of sensational journalism, innocent children, allegedly victims of abuse at home were put in front of the TV cameras, in the presence of a studio audience and asked to tell their stories.

No attempt was made to hide their identities.A little boy was asked: "Would you go back to your father? What if your mother came and called you now, would you go back to her?"

At this point, I was so shocked at the insensitivity of the producers of the programme and the presenters that I stopped watching the show called Naalai Namathe which was aired on Astro’s Channel 6 on April 15.

I was told by a friend that subsequently, three girls came on and that one of them said they were all afraid of going out for fear of being found by the alleged perpetrator of the violence against them.

Just how insensitive and irresponsible can a TV show get? Is this the way to discuss the issue of child abuse? If it was not enough that these children suffered abuse, family, friends, peers and the whole country now know their story and they have to face that humiliation, too.