Keep children out of political campaigning

We, the undersigned, are Malaysian non-governmental organisations working on child rights, child protection and the welfare of children. We write together because of campaign materials circulating in the final days of the Negeri Sembilan state election.

That material shows leaders and campaigners from Pakatan Harapan and the DAP directing children to shout campaign slogans and to call on the public to vote. The same principle applies with equal force to every party and candidate, and we would say the same of any other whose material showed the same.

Malaysia acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1995. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that "adult manipulation of children, placing children in situations where they are told what they can say, or exposing children to risk of harm through participation are not ethical practices". A child who repeats a slogan being urged on by an adult is not exercising a voice. The voice is exploited by the adult.

These children do not know the context. They cannot weigh the record of a government, the substance of a manifesto or the meaning of the words they have been given. They are asked to endorse something they are in no position to understand.

Their privacy is at stake too. Video footage does not expire and a child filmed this week will remain searchable for the rest of their life, attached to a political position they did not choose and cannot withdraw, and exposed in the meantime to the abuse that follows political content online.

Parental consent does not settle this, as the right belongs to the child. A parent may agree, and the child still carries the consequence into adulthood, in which they may hold entirely different views.

We therefore ask three things:

We ask Pakatan Harapan and DAP leaders to withdraw this material and to undertake that no child will be used in this way for the remainder of the campaign. We ask every other party to give the same undertaking.

We ask the Election Commission to treat this as an opportunity to issue clear rules, prohibiting the use of children in campaign activity and material, while leaving room for a child's ordinary presence alongside a parent.

We ask those who hold office to exercise the wisdom their position demands. Power carries a duty to set the standard rather than to test the limits of what nobody has yet forbidden.

Children cannot vote, cannot consent and cannot withdraw. They should not be asked to campaign.

G25 Malaysia

Children’s Protection Society Malaysia

Voice of the Children