PS the Children backs Budget 2027 digital safeguards, calls for transparent funding

A six-year-old sits on a couch with an iPad watching a show on YouTube at his home in Sydney, Australia on October 30, 2025. — AFP pic

By Malay Mail

First Published: Monday, 12 Oct 2026 8:45 AM MYT

Last Modified: Monday, 12 Oct 2026 8:50 AM MYT

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — Child advocacy group Protect & Save The Children Malaysia (PS the Children) has welcomed the child safety measures in Budget 2027, but urged the government to establish dedicated, transparent funding to guarantee their execution.

The group commended the explicit recognition of online child sexual exploitation in the national budget speech, noting that the screen in a child's hands has become a primary staging ground for abuse.

Key budget pledges include upgrading the police D11 division’s Malaysia Internet Crime Against Children (MICAC) system with advanced analytics, expanding the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s school safety campaigns, enforcing the Online Safety Act, and training 6,000 caregivers under a RM100 million matching grant.

To highlight the urgency, the group cited police statistics of 892 child sexual crime cases between January and October 2025 alone, while an inter-agency study estimated that roughly 100,000 Malaysian adolescents aged 12 to 17 experience online sexual exploitation annually, with half suffering in total silence.

Executive director Amnani Abdul Kadir warned that digital enforcement tools represent only one part of the solution.

"But technology alone cannot protect a child who does not know that what is happening to her is abuse," she said, insisting that school prevention, accessible reporting channels, and survivor recovery must receive equal funding priority.

The group also urged Putrajaya to publish dedicated child protection line items in the budget, mandate digital safety curricula in schools, enforce platform accountability, and strengthen mandatory background screening for all individuals working with children.