From SEAP #4 2026 Social Scope Newsletter
Recently Malaysia’s progress on meeting fundamental child rights was reviewed in Geneva by a United Nations panel of experts. High on their list of key recommendations was to strengthen, without delay, professional social work in all sectors, especially in the public sector.
To those working with children, especially child protection, this is no surprise. It has long been recognised that as a country we have a long way to go to provide the skilled, child and family sensitive interventions required to protect and nurture vulnerable children.
This is urgently needed not just at moments of crisis, but often long after, in addition to having programmes to prevent such crises occurring.
Core to such services are professionally trained social workers able not only to holistically assess the range of needs and causes, but to also have the inter-personal skills to work with both those affected and others, so that collectively the best interests of the child are served.
This crucial role social workers play is integrated into Malaysian law. When a report of child abuse is made, it is expected that the Child Protection Officer from Department of Social Welfare (JKM) is a trained social worker, as case management and submission of a social report as well as recommending a fit person is part of the child protector’s tasks.
Likewise, when a child has strayed into delinquent behaviour the court will ask JKM to provide a report on what, within the sentencing guidelines, is the most apt way of proceeding.
They will also ask JKM to assess the suitability of people to adopt, and whether such an adoption is in a child’s best interests. In addition, JKM has powers to assess if private and non-profit organisations are providing adequate standards of care and also run their own establishments.
As often happens, the laws are there but the implementation is weak. The key agencies lack resources both in numbers of staff who are fully-trained and the provision of regular supervision by more experienced colleagues.
The role of social workers and the complexities they address is not widely understood, so the public do not see the need for training as they do for those providing education or health care to children.
Rightly, there were protests from the public when children are abused; young people offend through lack of support, and when scandals occur within services meant to care for children, such as the GISB closures, but calls for a more professional response are few and far between. Professional social work is little understood, as is the complexity of their task
For its part, the government is aware of the important role social workers play. They also support calls for more care in the community and support family-based care, so every child has a family rather than institutional care.
However, to meet these aspirations, as UN experts have mentioned, the service needs strengthening. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child was encouraged by the government’s planned tabling of the Social Work Profession Bill, but the Social Work Alliance Malaysia (SWAM) would like to see the public sector included from the start, and not left to an undetermined date in the future.
Public social workers are the ones who have mandatory powers. The government is also the major employer of social workers, and their services are expected to cover the whole country.
Back in 2010, it was estimated that only 10 per cent of JKM social work staff were qualified. When people are recruited for this department, there is no requirement for the Public Service Department (JPA) to select qualified social workers. This would be unheard of for nurses, counsellors, or paramedics.
Supply is not the issue. There are now seven public universities offering degrees in social work. Back in the late 1990s, universities offering such degrees wanted a law to strengthen both entry to government posts and set mandatory hours of practice hours as part of professional training.
In 2010, the cabinet approved a draft bill mandating social workers in all sectors to be qualified and regulated, but it did not make it to Parliament.
Last year, the long-awaited Bill was revealed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (KPWKM), but this new version, surprisingly, only focused on the non-public sector, which has a minuscule number of qualified social workers when compared to the government sector.
Following feedback, it was withdrawn for further review, and it is as yet unclear whether or not the UN’s call for inclusion of the public sector is to be heeded.
On this World Social Work Day, SWAM calls on the government to honour the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) concluding observations by ensuring the upcoming Social Work Profession Bill includes the public sector.
The UNCRC committee has been clear: statutory child protection requires a unified standard of professional regulation. By including government social workers in this legislation, Malaysia will ultimately align with our Asean neighbours, the majority of whom already uphold inclusive legal frameworks that recognises social work as a regulated profession across both state and non-state sectors.
(Source: Aliran Daily Newsletter 23March 2026)
