00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about
00:15the use of SOSMA or the Security Offensive Special Measures Act against children. This
00:21because recently three minors were arrested under this controversial procedural law which
00:27as you know allows for detention without judicial oversight for as long as 28 days. Joining me now
00:34to discuss this further is Melissa Akhir who is a Suhaqam Commissioner and a women and child rights
00:41advocate. Melissa, good to have you on the show today. I am learning so much about the case and
00:47it is really concerning me but I'm curious to know from Suhaqam's perspective from someone like
00:53yourself who is an access to justice consultant. How are you looking at this? What is most
00:59concerning to you about the use of SOSMA on minors in this case? Yes, thank you so much Melissa for
01:07having me to represent Suhaqam and all the regards from the Children's Commissioners from Suhaqam as
01:13well because we're speaking about the subject matter that impacts them. Firstly, I would like
01:19to bring it back to Malaysia's human rights obligations because for Malaysia when we say that
01:25there are laws in the country, we pair it with our international human rights obligations. So number
01:31one on children, firstly there was something called the Havana rules on how children should be treated
01:37differently from adults. That was in 1990 and then Malaysia signed on to the Convention on the Rights
01:43of the Child in 1995. So now it's 2026, we have provisions within our laws and children's detention
01:52should be a matter of last resort, not the first resort. And all other matters must be exhausted before
02:00we decide to put children in detention or prisons or any other form of detention. So to start with,
02:08Malaysia has just been reviewed in terms of the status of children's rights in our country. Our report
02:14card on children's rights came out in February this year and that report card mentions precisely one of
02:20the matters is this. SOSMA and all other forms of detention and the government in Geneva promised to do
02:27improvements regarding how children are treated compared to adults. And this is where we stand now
02:33and we should follow through on our report card for improvements so that we get an A shall we say
02:39in terms of children's rights. So timely that the CRC review happened not too long ago and now we have
02:46this case dominating our headlines. With this case in particular there's been concern or there was speculation
02:52around terrorism or investigations into terrorism. I wanted to ask you Melissa about the way this
03:04affects children because there is clearly a concern that globally terrorist recruitment through social
03:11media through online gaming is happening. So from Suha Khan's perspective what would a more appropriate
03:17response look like if in fact these children were indeed groomed or at or radicalized online?
03:24Yeah even in the circumstance of grave or serious crimes there has to be a degree of proportionality.
03:32We understand the need for safety for security within the country but again since it's 2026 there must be
03:40more let's say elite or sophisticated modes of investigation that do not involve detention that
03:47actually look at children who could actually be victims in the recruitment techniques and within our
03:54own laws within our child act it says due to their lack of maturity due to their young age they
04:01are
04:02supposed to be protected from any manner for example grooming even in circumstances of extremism or
04:09fundamentalism or terrorism. So these approaches techniques for investigation is something that Suha Khan
04:16take seriously and we have been asking to meet for example with the inspector general police
04:22and we are wanting to propose joint training for example in our module with the police we're going to roll
04:30out hopefully treatment for of child witnesses for example in Sabah. So we want to work together for this
04:37technique so what I said earlier on the detention as a last resort can be a reality.
04:42Right okay just talk to me about that about the proportionality of the response what would be a
04:51proportional response because I'm wondering what this case reveals to you about the way we should adapt
04:57and have yet to adapt to the new forms of of threats involving children particularly online.
05:06Yeah so the good practices for example of police techniques that actually go to the root
05:12cause of the matter what is the pattern of recruitment how are children targeted so that is addressed
05:19first and then after that they can address the root cause in a community-based solutions way what is
05:27the involvement of the parents whether there's who have been contacting the children things like that
05:32if this is addressed this avoids for the situations of the children being recruitment and subsequently made
05:40worse in terms of the violence or action that they could be duped into shall we say so within some
05:48countries like Italy for example they catch it at the root so they don't need to detain anyone they have
05:55addressed it at the root and they can be rehabilitative or reformative approaches done so then the behavior
06:02change happens so it doesn't worsen and this happens across the world even in European countries where
06:09where the parents are already terrorists but the children are saved let's say from the situation of
06:15fundamentalism and the it is the government's duty to take care of all children in the country from
06:22being looked in further when when i say take care take care doesn't mean detention take care means
06:27reformative activities and interventions okay reformative activities and interventions um i'm just wondering in the
06:36the case of these three miners i know they've been released but are there protections or follow-up
06:42supports that that should be in place for them i can only imagine the um psychological and the long-term
06:51impact on these miners of being held in detention without access for was it 26 days and in solitary
06:59confinement with all the lights on in such harsh almost torturous conditions are there is there any support
07:05provided for these miners for these children yeah there's a great point for example the standpoint
07:12against convention against torture has been very clear uh degrading treatment these are some of the
07:17things that has been pointed out to malaysia where even if imposed on adults the lights on and all
07:24the modes that you said is already a high level already amounts to torture imagine again on children and
07:30their vulnerabilities that would be compounded so again we have specific laws in malaysia there are
07:36right standards that has been incorporated in there for example when you do referral to a court for
07:42children there's supposed to be orders made when you are releasing for example the approaches that goes
07:48away from just punitive uh an interactive workshop for example can be ordered together with the parents
07:54so this involves a social or community intervention mode and this workshop addresses how things might
08:03happen and the pattern so how is it avoided so it has to be tailored to that child in question
08:08using what
08:10is available in the malaysia law however we at sohakam and the children's commissioners are usually told that
08:17it doesn't pass that way and the interventions for example by the social welfare department is very sporadic or
08:24ad hoc and this is not something that we are doing in a systematic way perhaps uh sohakam can extend
08:31its hand to the government agencies and then we can work together for these orders to actually be
08:36realized we're happy to show the step by step on how this is done so so melissa how do we
08:42how do we stop
08:43this from ever happening again how do we prevent something like this from ever happening to another child
08:51uh number one we have the laws in substance but number two we need to look at what's in the
08:58structure
08:58and what's in our culture so our culture shouldn't be number one we put it put children in detention and
09:04throw the key away and then only we investigate no we investigate first and the preventive methods because
09:12that's your question is to get to know the community see the patterns if there's specific zones and locations
09:18this is where we say the more sophisticated way of investigation is addressing it at the root
09:24cost no child is born for example an extremist fundamentalist or terrorist there must have been
09:31approaches and layers of how the information got to them including by online means so this is where we
09:37need to invest in uh the investigative techniques needs to focus on to avoid uh things becoming more serious
09:46and like i mentioned in italy they even uh manage to link it to triads or people going to
09:52syria and isis they manage to address that in a bigger scale so if this is possible with children and
09:59young
10:00persons in other countries why can't we do it let's invest in the preventive measures first
10:05and melissa i really liked how you said you you extended the hand of suhakam to say that you know
10:11suhakam is here
10:12willing to help willing to train willing to give um whatever capacity help that that you can provide
10:19i am curious to know suhakam's role in this if i understand correctly suhakam has the i guess authority
10:26to visit to places of detention how was the due process in this case and what role did did suhakam
10:33play and when does suhakam play going forward okay precisely thank you for bringing up we issued several
10:39statements on this issue actually suhakam as an independent monitoring body of human rights
10:45including children's rights are also human rights we play several roles including monitoring in terms
10:51of detention in terms of why isn't it a diversion away from criminal opportunity measures and instead
10:59rehabilitative and reformative so we have asked repeatedly to be given access because that is part of
11:05our mandate as the statutory body we also advise the parliament for example the parliamentary select
11:12committee on human rights the parliamentary select committee that's in charge of children so therefore
11:17this uh let's say uh mode of how we can improve ways in which uh children are handled in these
11:26investigations so uh when we visit also sometimes maybe some government agencies are a bit surprised but
11:34it's for improvements it's for good practices and we can see certain things are doable community-based
11:42policing for example has moved forward a bit in timor leste our fellow neighbors in asean so if this
11:49is possible uh we can see how is it adaptive within the zones within the realities in malaysia whether up
11:56north
11:56or east coast or sabah and serawak even we're happy to work together with the agencies on this uh following
12:02the
12:02visits where we do the analysis and the reports thank you so much melissa ahir sahakam commissioner there
12:08wrapping up this episode of consider this i'm melissa idris signing off the evening thank you so much for
12:14thanks for watching and good night
