Three sisters living in filth-strewn shophouse sent to children's home

KUANTAN: Three sisters living in extreme squalor in a shophouse space with animals have been sent to a children's home until their guardian can provide a better living environment.

The girls, aged nine, 10 and 12, were living with their uncle in a garbage-strewn upper level of a shophouse on Lorong Seri Damai Perdana 57 here.

The filthy conditions were further compounded by the presence of 13 dogs, a civet, a turtle and a bird the girls were rearing.

Layers of animal waste could be seen on the floor, enveloping the whole space in a noxious miasma.

SJKC Taman Tas parent-teacher association chairman Yeoh Kok Bin said the exact whereabouts of the girls' mother was unknown as she had not been home for three years, while the father was working in Kuala Rompin.

"The father rarely returns home and it is difficult to reach him. The girls live with their uncle who is out the whole day and only comes back at night.

"They eat instant noodles in the afternoon and in the evening, either the eldest sister will cook or their uncle brings home takeaway food," he said on Monday (Sept 21).

Yeoh said the girls are of mixed Orang Asli-Chinese descent, seldom attend school and would give excuses such as oversleeping when asked why they were absent.

He added that they had been left behind in their studies due to this.

The school's headmistress visited them and even gave them mattresses and pillows last month but these were all chewed up by the dogs.

Yeoh said the school administration had contacted the girls' uncle numerous times to discuss their living situation but he always avoided meeting them.

Meanwhile, Teruntum assemblyman Sim Chon Siang said although this was not in his constituency, the matter required immediate attention as the girls must not be allowed to continue living in such a woefully-neglected situation.

Sim got the Social Welfare Department to intervene and after talking to the girls and their uncle, he agreed to send the three of them to the Rapha Children's Home temporarily.

"The Social Welfare Department will give the uncle time to clean up their living place and provide a suitable bedroom for the children or find a new home before they can be allowed to return to live with their family," said Sim.