Oct 8, 2009

Teen pregnant four times since 2007

A 14-YEAR-OLD girl from Tanjung Dawai in Sungai Petani, Kedah, admitted that she has been pregnant four times between 2007 and now, Harian Metro reported.

The teenager, who is three months pregnant now, had two miscarriages when she was 12 and 13 and underwent an abortion in April this year.She first became pregnant at 12 after she was raped in the bushes by a man who offered her a lift home after school, and became pregnant again the following year after being victimised by another man.

The girl dropped out of school and started work last year to ease the financial burden of her mother, who does not have a permanent job. Her father is a fisherman with no fixed income.To forget her problems, she mixed with other school dropouts in the area and started to take drugs such as syabu.She became pregnant for the third time after having sex with a youth and aborted the one-month-old foetus in April.

The teenager told her story at a meeting with enforcement officers from the Kuala Muda district religious office and Kedah Social Ills Unit (Unggas) volunteers at a food stall on Tuesday.Unggas supervisor Kamaruddin Kassim said the unit would monitor the progress of the teenager and assist her because she was victimised and had no one to turn to.

Kosmo! highlighted a report about Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s husband Mohamad Affendi Amir breaking his silence and expressing concern over the fact that his wife might also be jailed.Mohammad Affendi, who works in an IT firm in Singapore, e-mailed Kosmo! saying that Kartika should just be caned and should not have to spend even a day in prison.

He said Kartika had settled the RM5,000 fine after she was caught drinking alcohol, and was prepared to face six strokes of the rotan.A Pahang Syariah Judiciary Department spokesperson said it had yet to determine the date of the caning.

According to procedures, Kartika, who is a mother of two, would have to be detained for a week at Kajang Prison for the enforcement of the caning.

Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a sub-heading, it denotes a separate news item.

PMR student tries to delay test by setting fire to school

JOHOR BARU: The first day of PMR turned fiery for SMK Johor Jaya 2 here as one of the examination hall went up in smoke.

A student was believed to have torched the examination hall in a desperate attempt to delay the PMR. This was the second time a fire happened in the school right before the PMR. The first incident happened two years ago.

The 6am fire yesterday completely destroyed a classroom which was converted into an examination hall and located on the ground floor of a three-storey building. However, the PMR was not disrupted as the school’s administration relocated the affected 75 students to another classroom.

It is learnt that the school authorities lodged a police report alleging arson as a teacher was believed to have seen a person running away from the scene. Johor Deputy Education Depart-ment director Markom Giran, who visited the scene, said a student was believed to be responsible for the fire.

“We think diesel was used to start the fire,” he said, adding that it extinguished at around 6.25am.“Students taking the PMR were immediately relocated to another classroom initially prepared as an A(H1N1) quarantine area,” Markom said, adding that a total of 365 students are sitting for the PMR at the school.He commended the school authorities for efficiently moving the students to another location without any disruption to the examination.

Markom added that a similar incident had occurred in the same school about two years ago during the PMR.“Last time, a school workshop was torched. We believe this was the work of students who deliberately tried to stall the examination because they were not prepared,” he said.Markom added that the culprit was never found in the previous arson incident.He said about RM20,000 would be needed to repair and repaint the damaged areas.

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