They were responding to the suggestion by Malim Nawar assemblyman Leong Cheok Keng that the 14-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister had sex because they were exposed to porn via their phones.
Syirin Junisya Mohd Ali, the executive director of the Federation of Reproductive Health Associations Malaysia, said the situation was a “prime example” of the need to revamp the way youngsters view sex and deal with fantasies.
“The fact that they were heavily exposed to porn shows there was no reliable, trusted and private avenue where they could safely seek guidance about the situation they were in,” she told FMT.
She urged the government to work on a better syllabus for sex education, saying it had spent years “shying away” from teaching young people how to deal with sexual and reproductive health issues.
She lauded Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh for saying that her ministry and the education ministry would work on ways to see this initiative through.
“But it must not focus solely on abstinence.
“It should be a more comprehensive overview of issues which mirror the recently revised International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education,” she said.
Dr John Teo, an expert on teenage pregnancy and a medical practitioner based in Luyang, Sabah, said viewing porn could be associated with “riskier” sexual behaviours like incest, but it was not the only factor.
“To ascribe porn as the only cause would be missing the elephant in the room,” he said, citing the lack of comprehensive sex education, children dropping out of schools, and lower socio-economic strata.
Teo told FMT medical studies had shown that peer pressure and alcohol consumption were found to be predictors for early sexual debut among children and youngsters.
He said this should be looked into.
He added that supporting those who dropped out of school with vocational training and helping families provide proper care for their children would also decrease incest cases – not only curtailing online access to porn sites.
“In this case, it is not only the lives of the teens that are severely affected, but also the lives of their family and the wider support systems. They may never recover from it in their lifetime.
“Implementing good and sound policies that invest in our youth and adolescents, backed by good quality research, must be what every lawmaker should be advocating,” he said, adding that it was a complex issue.
Independent child rights advocate Madeleine Yong told FMT that incestuous relationships might reflect some sort of “disturbance” in the way family members interact with each other at home. However, she too dismissed the idea that porn was to blame.
She also highlighted the need to protect boys from being raped, asking if the authorities had determined if it was the boy who raped his sister and not the other way around.
The boy, who cannot be named under the Child Act, pleaded guilty to committing incest with his sister at the Kampar Court for Children on Monday.
He was charged under Section 376B (1) of the Penal Code, which carries a jail term of up to 30 years and whipping for adult offenders.
Leong said yesterday that a lawyer would be engaged for the boy on a pro bono basis to mitigate for a lower sentence.