Baby Hatch

The NGO called OrphanCARE, associated with Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, launched first ‘baby hatch’ in Malaysia for rescuing unwanted newborns, as authorities battle of increasing cases of baby dumping. Modelled on similar services in Germany, Pakistan and Japan, the NGO says the facility will allow mothers to leave their babies anonymously at its premises in Petaling Jaya, in Malaysia's central Selangor state.


The main motive of this system is to protect babies from unnecessary death and child abuse and also to reduce the number of children growing up in homes by giving them up for adoption to proper deserving families.


The hatch has a small door which opens to an incubator bed on which a mother can place her baby. Once the door is closed, an alarm bell will alert the NGO's staff to the baby's presence, after the mother has left. And also, once the door is closed, it will locked and the mother can’t take back their baby. If they changed mind and wish to get back their baby, they have to approach OrphanCARE Centre themselves and talk to the person in charge.


With the concept, “Every Child needs a family”, OrphanCARE will then find a suitable home for the baby. Parents who interested to adopt a baby can make their application to OrphanCARE by online. The organisation will have a psychologist and other experts to interview the applicants and also lawyers to handle legal matters pertaining to adoption. These prospective parents will give an assurance that there will be no legal repercussions for those who leave their babies at the hatch.


Within 3 months operation, 7 babies dropped off in this baby hatch and 6 of these babies adopted to eligible parents there were carefully selected by OrphanCARE. They planned to open more hatches around the country, but the challenge was that the system of about RM15,000 was too costly.

There pros and cons for the launching of this baby hatch. This system would give desperate mothers an alternative to abandoning or killing their babies. Besides reducing the cases of baby dumping, it help also parents who they are wishing to have a child but can’t get pregnant. It help abandoned baby to find a more suitable growth environment.

But, there are some people said that this baby hatch will encourage premarital sex. Teens will become not scare to get pregnant because it provides a place for them to dump their baby due to their illicit sex. They know that their unwanted baby can get good cares and may find a better family and a better environment by dropping them. Besides that, this baby hatch also encourage parents desert their unwanted babies. In Japan, there were cases that parents misuse this baby hatch, dropped handicap babies into it.

Sekolah Harapan – School for pregnant teens

On 17 Sept 2010, a school for pregnant teens named Sekolah Harapan or School of Hope opened in Jasin, Melaka. The school opened without much fanfare, and no takers yet at the time of open. Malacca Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam, who mooted the idea of setting up this school, said the school is open to married and unmarried teens who are pregnant as well as rape victims. RM500,000 had been set aside for the School of Hope to provide free education as well as maternity and delivery care for pregnant teens, whether they are married or not.


Converted from two buildings owned by Air Melaka Berhad, the school, which is equipped with a hostel, is managed by the Malacca Islamic Affairs Council. The school located on a scenic hilltop outside the tourist town of Malacca, which can take up to 40 students including 20 at its residential hostel. The public was not allowed to enter the school, and the identity of the students was confidential.


Chairman Datuk Abdul Rahman Abdul Karim said that the students would attend regular classes for standard examination subjects during the day and be taught handicraft and parenting skills in the evening by female trained educators. The mothers-to-be would be taught the standard secondary school syllabus. After their delivery and confinement period, they will return to their normal schools.


Some Muslim commentators have complained that Sekolah Harapan or “School of Hope” will only encourage premarital sex. But Abdul Rahman defended the school as a practical strategy to combat the rising numbers of abandoned infants — often dumped dead or dying in the streets or on rubbish dumps in cases that have shocked Malaysians.


On 19 Sept 2010, 2 days after the school opened, 5 pregnant teenagers have enrolled in and become the first batch students. The students, aged 16 and 17, from Malacca, Johor, the Federal Territory, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, registered with the companies of their parents. Four of them will be in Form 5 and another one in Form 4.

Situation 3 - Insufficient Education System

It is undeniable that baby dumping has been a growing concern among the society. Whether through mouth to mouth conversation to news broadcasted in every corner of the country, baby dumping had become the most pressing issue talked and debated among civilians and concerned parents. What had actually gone wrong? Is this the current social norm that we had subconsciously adopted, or that we simply wouldn’t care that such things are happening before our eyes, casting ignorant glances and pointing fingers at the other party?

Education, whether formal or informal, had become the source of knowledge and information in our daily life especially during our adolescence years. The lack of education is one of the majoring factors that contributed to the rise of this phenomenon. Students as young as secondary school are most susceptible to the curiosity of exploring the opposite sex. The lack of sex education does not help them in understanding the opposite sex when instead they would innocently adopt unprotected sex in their schooling days. This would lead to unwanted pregnancy and inexperience in handling this sort of situation. Consequently this would result in baby dumping.

Earlier this year, opinions and debates were brought up whether we should introduce sex education in school syllabus. However, parties involved in the debate had taken the stance and move on with the old syllabus, concerning that whether the conservative social norm would able to accept this kind of education being taught in schools. Aspects and areas of human body are rigidly and conservatively taught in biology without painting a clear picture of the consequences of unprotected sex to the students. Students knew that they should not be involved in sexual activities but they do not know how to cope with it should such unwanted cases happen. Without proper support and formal education, they would not know the correct way of managing their emotions and thus could result in baby dumping. Research from US showed that children as young as the age of 8 are the best years in knowing about sex and the opposite sex. This statement had opened a point of view whether sex education should be implemented in schools, perhaps breaking the barrier of the conservative mindset of the nation where such issue should be addressed openly.

Besides that, informal education where enforcement of sex education from parents and relatives are at utmost important in addressing this issue too. However, many cases occur where parents themselves are too embarrassed to talk about this topic to their own children. For instance, parents giving birth out-of wedlock would most probably be too embarrassed to talk about this issue to their children. Although they would never like their children to follow their footsteps, but the fear of bringing the same thing out is just too intense, leaving them untruthful information about sex and unwanted pregnancy. There are articles and survey done that, adolescents and teenagers learn about sex through pornography and exaggerated information about sexual intercourse through internet and obscene magazines. Hence, this would definitely lead to adolescents and teenagers having sex at a very young age and result in baby dumping when unwanted pregnancy happened.

To sum up everything, education whether it is informal or formal plays a vital role in educating adolescents and teenagers about sexual intercourse and most importantly the consequences of baby dumping. Cold hard facts are taught through biology, but students nowadays are lack of the moral approach of baby dumping, which I believe is only touched at the very surface. Education as well as counseling should be done more thoroughly and the emotional state of teenagers should not be neglected. In short, education plays an important role in forming the self-concepts and perspectives of adolescents about unprotected sexual intercourse and most importantly the consequences of baby dumping.