The past weekend saw the discovery of 15-year old boy, afflicted with cerebral palsy, and left to fend for himself in room in a Taman Semarak, Nilai, flat – where immigration officers running a check for illegals found him severely malnourished, skeletal, practically naked, and covered in his own filth. A wheelchair was found in the room with him.
The officers at the scene found the boy’s Malaysian birth certificate, identifying him as Muhammad Firdaus Dullah, of Bajau descent, reports The Star Online. He is now being treated, and is in stable condition, at the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital.
The boy’s mother, a 40-year old from Tawau, Sabah, was tracked down and detained by police shortly after the discovery of her son. Police are investigating the incident under Section 31 (1) of the Child Act 2001, which covers ill-treatment, neglect, abandonment and exposure to physical or emotional injury.
The law allows for a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, or a fine of RM10,000, or both, upon conviction.
The mother was quoted by Berita Harian as denying she had abused her son, insisting that she had been unable to cafre for her disabled son, and had been seeking to place the boy in a home. She reportedly works for a catering company at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
She was quoted as saying tht she would leave food for her son before leaving for work, but he would scatter the food everywhere.
“It’s dry food and because I can’t afford to buy diapers, he defecates everywhere. When I come back home from work, I’m too exhausted to clean the room. And it so happened that yesterday, there was no water at home, so I couldn’t clean it,” she was quoted saying by Berita Harian.
The National Council of Welfare and Social Development has come forward saying that it will provide assistance to the boy, with its vice-president Roshasni Marjumat saying that he would be enrolled in a special needs school once he fully recovers and is discharged from the hospital.
Roshasni expressed his disappointment at the refusal of many parents of disabled children who refuse to seek help. “We have encountered so many cases where parents chose to lock them up in their house instead of seeking assistance and aid for them,” he said, in a report by The Malay Mail Online.
“The main problem is parents who prefer to live in denial and neglect their children’s future.”
Photo: China Press
