Human Writes: Do you know there are shockingly poor children living in KL?

Children at PPR Kampung Baru Air Panas in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, playing beside a dirty drain. Children staying in PPR flats usually have limited space to study and play, and sometimes resort to doing so in unsafe places. Photo: The Star/ AZHAR MAHFOF

Main image: Children at PPR Kampung Baru Air Panas in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, playing beside a dirty drain. Children staying in PPR flats usually have limited space to study and play, and sometimes resort to doing so in unsafe places. 

They are the “children without”, children deprived of bare necessities, including enough food. And they don’t live in some poor, far-off land. This is the plight of children right here in Malaysia’s capital, according to a shocking study released recently by Unicef entitled “Children Without: A Study Of Urban Child Poverty And Deprivation In Low-Cost Flats In Kuala Lumpur”. (Unicef is the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.)