Yayasan Chow Kit founder Hartini Zainudin said that under the Child Act 2001, the Myanmar boys should have been released.PETALING JAYA: There is no legal basis for a nine-year old Myanmar child to be held in custody, a child rights activist said while criticising a magistrate's decision to deny bail for three other Myanmar children charged with criminal intimidation.
Yayasan Chow Kit founder Hartini Zainudin questioned if the authorities would have handled Malaysian children the same way.
“After 30 years in this work, I do not believe we would. We would call the parents, bring in welfare officers, mediate between neighbours, and use the Child Act as Parliament intended,” she said, as the legislation protected every child in Malaysia and had "no citizenship clause”.
