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By Avila Geraldine February 8, 2020 @ 7:39pm
KOTA KINABALU: A group of street children, who have been pestering drivers, pedestrians and tourists for money have raised concerns among the city folk here.
The children, always in dirty clothing and without any shoes, were normally seen along roads and traffic light junctions, including in tourist spots.
City folk here claimed that the children were rude and always disturb locals and tourists by asking them for money. Some even went to the extent of following them around.
A community leader has urged authorities to tackle this issue saying that it has painted a bad image for the state.
This comes after a photograph of the children, taking a bath at a water fountain at Jalan Gaya, went viral on social media.
Expressing regret of such incident, Parti Warisan Sabah secretary-general Datuk Loretto Padua called on the authorities to act against the street children.
“The police, immigration, and City Hall must use all laws that have been provided to tackle this (street children) problem.
“It’s our responsibility to not only look after the safety of the community but also of tourists in the city,” he said.
Loretto added that such behaviour displayed by the children could paint a bad image to the state tourism sector.
A resident Livina Chong, 33, said these “street kids” have been making their presence felt since early this year. She said they were rude at times.
“They seem to come and go. They were not around the last time, but suddenly you see them (now), disturbing car drivers and passersby.
“I had my car window knocked on several times at the traffic lights.
“There were two girls asking for money and they would make a face or show an obscene hand gesture if you didn’t entertain them.” said the clerk, who works in the city centre.
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Ex-street kids becoming problemPublished on: Saturday, January 30, 2016KOTA KINABALU: The perennial problem of stateless street children has now escalated to social and security problems after it was revealed that the mastermind behind the recent crime cases in and around the city was a former street child.Likas Assemblyman Junz Wong said while City Police Chief ACP M. Chandra deserved praise for a job well done in nabbing the suspects and solving the carjacking, attempted kidnapping and robbery cases which happened between Jan 10 and 20, it proved that the worries on the consequences of uncontrolled street children were not at all unfounded.”It was reported that the suspects grew up in the streets of Kota Kinabalu thus they were very knowledgeable about the city and very familiar with its layout.”In other words, all were well planned and these were not random crimes. The suspects would stalk their potential victims to look for opportunities to commit crime using the vehicles they have stolen as reported.
“This is extremely worrying as far as public safety is concerned in the city,” he said during a press conference here, Thursday.Wong said while there are no exact statistics to ascertain the total number of street children, it is an open secret that their number is not small.Wong, who is also DAP Sabah Secretary, said thus the next question hovering in the mind of every Sabahan now would be what the Government is going to do about it.”Please don’t give excuses like that was isolated case because every Sabahan knows the problems of the stateless street children and the related potential ill social problems,” he said.Sabahans, he added, expect nothing less than a concrete practical solution to deal with the street children issue.
He urged the State Government to set up a special committee to do an in-depth study on the impacts and the extent of the “stateless” street children problem, and also the practical and alternative solutions.”The Government cannot turn a blind eye on this problem. Instead of dishing out money in schemes like BR1M and on other poorly veiled scheme designed to fish for votes, this Government needs to create jobs and also train people with skills which will help transform their lives and the country.”I urge the relevant ministries to set up a committee with a sense of urgency, to look into this issue seriously.”If the Government fails to deal with this issue, it may quickly become a bigger social problem in the future as this is not a problem confined only to KK City because there are many more street children throughout the State,” he said.On Tuesday, ACP Chandra announced that police believe they have solved 11 crime cases with the arrest of two male suspects, both foreigners.The suspects, along with another accomplice who is still at large, are believed to have committed the crimes between Jan 10 and 20.According to Chandra, the mastermind grew up in the streets of Kota Kinabalu as their parents are cigarette peddlers.
weehingthong 