KUCHING: Sarawak has witnessed four instances of baby dumping from January to March 2024, indicating a troubling social issue in the region. According to the Sarawak Public Communications Unit, the latest incident involved a newborn girl found at the baby hatch facility of Borneo Medical Center (BMC) in Kuching.
Sarawak Minister for Women, Early Childhood, and Community Wellbeing Development Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah highlighted the distressing trend, noting that police records from the Sexual, Women and Children Investigation Division (D11) have documented 54 such cases over the past eight years.
"During the same period, based on the percentage of abandoned babies compared to the number of teenage pregnancies in Sarawak, the trend of increase and decrease do not differ much and remain below one per cent, ranging between 0.19 per cent and 0.62 per cent," she said.
This statistic, while seemingly minor, underscores a persistent issue of baby dumping in the state.
During a press conference following her visit to BMC Kuching, Fatimah discussed the urgent need for a strategic action plan to address this issue, particularly in light of the recent baby hatch rescue.
She also made a heartfelt plea to the mother of the abandoned child, urging her to come forward to facilitate the child's citizenship registration process, emphasising the child's welfare as the paramount concern.