Hartini Zainudin, founder of Yayasan Chow Kit—an NGO dedicated to supporting at-risk children and teenagers through education and other programmes—said there is a prevailing belief that sex education would “make kids promiscuous.”
However, Hartini, who previously claimed that sexual activity among minors was an invisible problem largely fuelled by social media and peer pressure, said children generally do not go around looking for sex.
“They’re looking for connection, safety and control in lives filled with trauma or neglect.
“Kids go along with risky behaviour just to feel seen. But we judge them before we understand what they’re carrying,” she told FMT.
Hartini was commenting on a news report about underage sex in Kelantan.
Kelantan police chief Yusoff Mamat said he was concerned about the growing number of underage sex cases, saying that girls as young as 10 and boys as young as 11 were found to be engaging in sexual activity.
Last year, about 252 cases of underage sex were reported, an increase from the 206 in 2023. Yusoff also said 98% of the reported cases were consensual.
Madeleine Yong, co-creator of Power of Play, an NGO that provides therapy for abused children, said that while sex education has been in the national syllabus for decades, it has not been taught properly.
Sex-ed is taught with a moralistic view and is often vague and “wrapped in shame”, she said.
Done right, Yong said it can empower children to understand consent and body safety, resist abuse and coercion, build healthy relationships with peers, and navigate harmful myths from media and peer pressure.
“When conversations about bodies, relationships and safety are clouded by silence, we lose the opportunity to build emotional literacy and critical thinking, and children walk away with confusion and shame, not clarity,” she said.
Former Suhakam child commissioner Noor Aziah Awal shared similar concerns, saying despite the education ministry insisting that sex education was part of the school syllabus, “not much was done as it is a taboo topic”.
She also said there was nothing wrong, from a religious perspective, with sex education.
“In Islam, parents must teach children self-respect, dignity and honouring the family name. Children must be informed of the harm that may be inflicted on them if they do certain things.”
She also said sexual desire is a natural part of being human, but children need guidance on how to properly manage these desires and understand the physical and emotional changes that come with puberty.
Noor Aziah also disagreed with the argument that sex education promotes promiscuity, arguing that “the more one talks about it, the less curious the child would become”.