- 7 hours ago
This episode we speak to Tengku Yasmin Nastasha from Children’s Protection Society Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur to explore about consent, communication gaps, and whether Malaysia is doing enough to guide youths in navigating these conversations responsibly.
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00:07Hello you're watching It's About Youth with me Amil Aiman and tonight we're going to discuss
00:13about a topic that's very important it's quite taboo now conversation around consent and boundaries
00:19are becoming more visible today especially among young people among youths but despite that
00:26confusion still exists misunderstandings happened communications break down and in many ways young
00:33people are left to figure out for themselves things on their own so tonight we ask are we really equipping
00:40youths with the understanding the right understanding they need or are there still gaps that exist that
00:47we can address now joining me to unpack this discussion is Tengku Yasmin Nastasya from the
00:54Children's Protection Society Yasmin thank you so much for joining me tonight let's start with the
01:00basics what this actually looks like on the ground what does consent actually look like in real life
01:07situation among young people today thank you okay firstly I have to say thank you Amiral for inviting
01:12me again here so consent in real life situation is okay firstly we have to understand consent has to be
01:22freely given so if it's you give you say yes under pressure or under fear or because there's somebody
01:30of authority forces you to say yes that's not consent and also it's important to note that under Malaysian
01:40law children under 16 cannot validly give consent for sexual acts so even if they give consent that's not valid
01:51and
01:52what they if it's a sexual act then if they have sex then it's a statutory rate that is consent
01:58and what we see
02:01on the ground and even with more composition happening today you know the age of digital age but there still
02:06seem to be confusion among young people about consent now why is consent still misunderstood and even
02:14though it's more widely talked about now yeah okay consent is misunderstood because people think that
02:20once you give consent at one time it is carried forward indefinitely no you can take consent is continuous not
02:29permanent so let's say I would tell the children if today you want to play with your friends and tomorrow
02:36you
02:36don't want to it's okay you can take that you can say yes today and you can say no tomorrow
02:41it's okay
02:41that's you tell it teach giving bound setting boundaries and no yesterday and yes today it's okay
02:53it's important for us to communicate it as well and it comes down to how so it basically boils down
02:59to
02:59how the people communicate it as well what does the healthy communication of boundaries actually look like
03:05in practice do you yeah in practice healthy communication is when parents listen to their
03:11children so if the parents have to build a healthy communication with their children they have to
03:18first start to listen to their children so if the children want to tell them something they have to
03:23listen the communication the line of communication has to be open and like I know
03:33like the generation before us they would always tell the children oh you have to do this you have to
03:39do that if you don't listen you're rude and all that but now I see younger parents are now teaching
03:47children like yes you can say no if you're not comfortable and the children are more comfortable
03:51to speak up like I don't want this I don't want that so that's them saying telling their boundaries
03:57drawing the line what they don't want to do and we can't force them like for example we can't force
04:03our children if to salam or hug somebody that they're not comfortable with you know that's that's them
04:12showing them they don't they're not comfortable and you have to respect that so you asked me we've
04:17talked about how healthy communication looks like how can you express boundaries saying no but in reality
04:24situation are not always clear-cut as we can understand so how can young people or children
04:30recognize when consent is not really clear pressured or perhaps not properly given the keyword is pressured
04:40so when consent is given under pressure that's not real consent so when you feel uncomfortable giving
04:49saying yes that's not real consent what I tell the children if you are forced to say yes when to
05:00say
05:00yes if you know your friend wants to borrow your toys for a children I mean want to take your
05:08toys play
05:09with it and you don't want to give but you're forced to give them that's not consent you were given
05:15uh you gave that uh yes because you felt pressured so under pressure is not a valid consent and and
05:25and sometimes the issue is not uh there's another issue so sometimes it's not what is said but what
05:30isn't this is uh quite a popular term where silence means acceptance people say that why is silence or
05:40perhaps hesitation themselves often been misunderstood and how and how should young people or children
05:45interpret those situations more clearly more responsibly silence uh means yes i think that is a very very
05:54dangerous um uh concept um i think it was it's a quote from plate uh plateau that silence means consent
06:04no
06:05actually and people use that to for their selfish behavior uh selfish uh needs silence some uh is not consent
06:14silence can be a way that they're they feel they feel uncomfortable so they feel scared there's fear
06:22that's why they stay silent they're scared that some uh if they say no something will have bad
06:27something bad will happen to them so a no when somebody says no it is a clear cut no and
06:35sometimes you
06:36can say yes but it can also turn into a no you can as i said consent can be taken
06:43away at any time
06:44if you don't feel comfortable you can say no and the person has to respect that and then we have
06:53uh
06:53delved deep into how uh communication wise and whether it's spoken or not spoken now let's zoom
07:00up from individuals to let's look at the bigger picture now here where do you see the biggest gaps
07:08or perhaps there isn't or there is biggest gaps in malaysia's approach to sex education this is a taboo
07:14but also we believe that education plays a big role in terms of addressing these gaps and if you believe
07:20the gaps exist why do these gaps exist the biggest gap uh talking about sex education or um about this
07:31taboo topic because yeah it's taboo uh because of our culture you know they think that you know this
07:39talk should be done in private uh but is it actually being done in private because you know everybody's like
07:47or uh you can't speak about it openly but do you actually do parents actually talk to their
07:53children about it so if somebody if you know if they're not learning from the right people they're
08:01gonna learn it from somewhere else and you can't control how they act so it's better or it's not even
08:10better parents have to teach them about uh sex early on and uh parents guardians even teachers play an
08:20important role to talk and teach the children about safe sex it's not we're not encouraging children
08:28to have sex you see but people do have sex and like uh yb nancy uh shared this year the
08:37statistics was
08:38that uh 10 there's 10 000 unwanted uh teenage teenage pregnancy uh from 2020 to 2024 that's a alarming rate
08:50you see so even if we don't teach the children uh sex they're learning it from somewhere else so it's
08:57more important for parents to actually talk talk openly to their children about uh sex education
09:06and also with uh sex uh children have to know that you know with sex comes responsibility and
09:14consequences when you have sex things can come out out of it you can get pregnant you can get sexually
09:24transmitted diseases and your body changes when when at a young age you have sex you know your body
09:31changes and you know it's not a easy process and when your children you know having sex and you get
09:42pregnant they're so young their future the future is ahead of them but when you have when you become
09:50pregnant that's it you're done because you can't raise a child and also have an education
09:57because most of the time you don't have uh most people don't have that luxury
10:20and rightly so you mentioned that uh why is it difficult because it's a taboo topic
10:25and uh parents need to speak to the children more often but sticking to i just want to have a
10:31follow
10:31up a bit on that uh education is very important that school children goes to school like young
10:37people go to school like eight hours a day so and and minister of education has always said that they
10:44are trying their best in implementing the right syllabus in integrating the right syllabus to teach
10:50about consents to think about sex education right things to teach about the to kids to kids nowadays
10:55but do you think syllabus is one thing but do you think that our educators themselves are equipped for
11:05this topic yeah the answer to that my this is my opinion they're not fully equipped they you know
11:13because this teachers they are most of the teachers they handle three four subjects minimum you see
11:19they don't have that luxury to properly explain to the children what is sex education what is safe sex
11:28it's again we're not encouraging children to have sex but you know people are doing it children are doing
11:36it so it's important to have a person who is trained properly trained maybe get a doctor or a
11:48a professional a professional to come in and talk and teach the children about sex education
11:55so we've talked about uh how education is important and not just the syllabus but also
12:01to make sure that the person who's teaching it is well equipped as well um there's also another integral
12:08part in terms of the solution to this uh problems that we have now is society and how we respond
12:16to
12:16society so if you follow a malaysian cases that a lot of people will say we are more reactive than
12:23preventive whenever there's cyberbullying and then something happened when there's death occurs then
12:29only then we will react do you think malaysia's approach issues related to consent is more
12:36reactive than preventive as well i think that um we are a reactive society rather than preventive
12:44you know we only start when a case has already happened we only want to start the ball rolling after
12:51something major has happened which cannot be the case prevention is better than cure we have to address
12:58it early on you cannot let you know one one viral case baru you want to do something we have
13:08to stop
13:09doing that we have to because we already know what are the problems in our society you know we it's
13:16not
13:16something that happened past two three years it's been ongoing since 20 30 even 40 50 years ago
13:23kids are children are getting pregnant and children um you know um their con their boundaries has been crossed
13:34before so we have to take action okay so uh we have talked a bit uh about this uh parents
13:45role in terms of
13:46teaching kids about consent and all that earlier uh because it's also another integral part of the
13:52solution we've talked about education we've talked about society as well how we need to be more
13:56preventive than reactive now let's talk about parents though what kind of language or approach
14:03that will make uh it's easier for parents to talk to their children about this kind of topic especially
14:11it's a very taboo topic and back in their generations as well it is considered taboo as well
14:17so how do we break the chain and make sure it's okay for parents to talk about to the children
14:22maybe
14:23they don't know themselves we have to normalize the conversation at first like like what we're
14:28doing today we're uh opening the opening up the conversation starting the conversation
14:33so the conversation has to you have to keep it seem simple start early and you know with everyday
14:41happenings teach them um about personal space boundaries so if um you don't the children the
14:51child doesn't want to hug an uncle because he's not she he is not comfortable with the uncle you have
14:57to respect that and slowly you're teaching them boundaries and consent and of course uh young people
15:06nowadays are also learning from other space so if the parents are not talking to them and if our
15:14education system fails that's one space that's quite dangerous it's quite uh the digital space which we are
15:22talking now what does the current digital landscape looks like for young people today uh to learn about
15:30consent and relationships as well and do you think we are doing enough to make sure that is uh to
15:38guide
15:38them in that particular space yeah are we doing enough i think we're not doing enough okay but the digital
15:47space is i would say it's a double-edged sword it's both cure and poison if we don't teach them
15:53how to
15:54navigate the digital space safely it can become poison but there's so many things we can learn
16:02with the internet you know there's so many things you can learn about you can teach them about consent
16:10using the things that the information that's available on the internet if we're not teaching them how
16:15to navigate safely in the digital space they can end up learning something harmful like they can't can
16:22come across porn they can come across child grooming like a predator trying to be friends with them
16:32and trying to take advantage of them you know being naive and all this so that's why it's both a
16:39poison
16:39and a cure so what i would say is that you should teach your children to start whatever that they
16:49won't
16:49accept offline they shouldn't accept uh accept done being done online whatever you want to do online has
16:58to be what you will do offline you have to teach children um you have to build a relationship with
17:05your
17:06children offline a safe and healthy relationship and teach them what adapt so adapt offline you have to
17:17incorporate that when they go online so they know what they shouldn't accept and what they it's okay and
17:23what is okay to share online is also okay to share in real life as simple as that and i
17:31think where the
17:32digital space can be more safe and but i think the you know the regulations the that's coming in is
17:44there's more regulations people our government is trying to regulate children being online like
17:52children under 16 can't have a social media account i think that's they we're doing something but
17:58you know there's many ways that they still can bypass all that so what we have to do as adults
18:05is that
18:05teaching children how to navigate the digital space safely and yes we've come to the end of our show and
18:13i'm pretty sure you have done this advocating for consent and what is right for children and how to
18:20navigate this for years now do you have any final messages to the people who are watching this maybe the
18:27children the youth and society or parents as well how important it is for us to get the right
18:35information and how important for youth or children today to understand that consent is where is key
18:41to safe relationships with people yeah um i think that we have to give them all this right information
18:48so that they can make informed decision you have to teach them and educate them on what is safe sex
18:55what
18:56is boundaries what is consent so that they can make better decisions they know what is right and what
19:03is wrong so that's what i would want to say you have to talk parents have to openly talk to
19:11their children
19:12parents guardians teachers you know because if they're not gonna learn from if they're not learning
19:17from us they're gonna learn from someone online who's trying to take advantage of them
19:21well so thank you so much yasmin uh for joining us and thank you so much for sharing those insights
19:25as well so tonight conversation shows that it is very important for us to talk about this topic and
19:31to not stop talking about this topic because to make sure we break that taboo and in order for us
19:36to
19:36have children's to are well educated in this topic and well informed for them to build a safe relationship
19:43with anyone or with particularly an adult out there and perhaps more importantly is to shift our society
19:50on how do we react to the situation not in a reactive manner but also in a preventive manner
19:56and i guess that's all for me tonight i'm i'm amril aiman and you're watching it's about youth good night
20:17you
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