PETALING JAYA: The most dangerous place for any paedophile or child abuser to be employed is the one closest to their targets, says a crime prevention specialist.
Dr Shamir Rajadurai said if someone wanted access to children, then working around children would be the perfect place.
“Instead of going out looking for potential victims, potential victims are handed to them through their jobs,” he said.
Shamir said child sexual offenders actively looked for environments that gave them access to children, trust from parents and authority within the community.
A school without proper screening was potentially creating opportunities for abuse, he added.
“Even more importantly, these roles come with trust. Parents and the schools see them as safe, making them the perfect camouflage for someone with malicious intent,” he said in response to cases of teachers allegedly sexually abusing and grooming their students.
Shamir, who holds a PhD in Criminology and Masters in Criminal Justice, said background screenings were not merely a human resources process but more about crime prevention and “aligning with a person’s intuition”.
“In crime prevention, the goal isn’t just to stop the offenders. It is to make them decide not to target you in the first place,” he said.
Shamir added that proper screening helped identify potential risks before anyone was given direct access to children.
National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Fouzi Singon said screenings can be used on all those who aspired to become a teacher.
He said currently, the teaching profession was reduced to being the last choice for many job seekers.
“But they work as teachers just to get by, which is why you get bad apples,” he added.
Fouzi however said there were cases where teachers were falsely accused and parents made up accusations, adding that NUTP had helped many such teachers who were cleared by the courts after many years of trial.
“It is not enough to have a campaign but a mechanism needs to be formulated by the Education Ministry to protect teachers and students. Parental cooperation will greatly help,” he added.
Meanwhile, child rights advocates and experts are questioning why checks through Malaysia’s Child Sexual Offender Registry (e-DKK) have yet to be made mandatory for all institutions working with children.
Voice of the Children (VoC) chairperson and lawyer Sharmila Sekaran said discussions surrounding such cases should not just focus on the offender but also on whether the institution involved had taken adequate preventive measures.
“It matters not only whether the individual who committed the offence can be held accountable, but whether the institution had taken all reasonable measures to prevent harm and protect the child.
“When abuse occurs, institutions must ask who committed the offence and what safeguards failed to prevent it,” she said.
Sharmila said an e-DKK screening should be the minimum requirement for all individuals who worked directly with children.
Children’s Protection Society Malaysia (CPSM) Kuala Lumpur vice-chairman Nawiza Ariff said abuse cases involving teachers and educators point to possible shortcomings in screening and child protection measures.
“Children’s safety should never depend on trust alone. Institutions should be required to maintain screening records, conduct periodic re-screening of staff and be subject to regular audits and inspections, with appropriate action taken against those who fail to comply,” she said.
All Women’s Action Society (Awam) president Dr Lai Suat Yan said e-DKK screenings should be made mandatory not only for teachers and staff, but also volunteers, contractors, consultants and other individuals that have regular contact with children.
She said institutions should also be required to demonstrate compliance with such requirements as part of a broader child safeguarding framework.
“Regular monitoring and audits should be conducted to ensure that child protection policies and procedures are not merely in place on paper, but are effectively implemented.
“Appropriate action should also be taken against institutions that fail to meet minimum child protection standards, including the revocation of licences, registration or accreditation,” she said.
Last November, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) M. Kulasegaran told Parliament that 608 out of 3,093 sexual crime cases involving minors recorded between 2023 and October 2025 occurred within school premises. Of this, he said 2,241 involved female victims.
