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Cover photo © UNICEF Malaysia/2018/Noorani SITUATION ANALYSIS OF ADOLESCENTS IN MALAYSIA CONTENTS ACRONYMS 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6 1 INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND 7 1.1 Purpose and objectives 9 1.2 Methodology 10 2 CONTEXT 11 2.1 Population and demographic profile of adolescents in Malaysia 12 2.2 Socio-economic-political context of adolescents in Malaysia 12 3 NATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY FRAMEWORK 16 4 EDUCATION, SKILLS AND EMPLOYMENT 20 4.1 Access to education 21 4.2 Improving learning outcomes 24 4.3 Skills development for employability 25 4.4 Access to quality work opportunities 27 5 ENABLING AND PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT 31 5.1 Child marriage 33 5.2 Violence and abuse at home and school 36 5.3 Online protection 39 5.4 Adolescents in conflict with the law 41 CONTENTS 6 NUTRITION AND HEALTH 45 6.1 Nutrition 47 6.2 Sexual reproductive health 50 6.3 Mental health 51 6.4 Substance abuse 53 7 PARTICIPATION AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 55 7.1 Access to and participation in decision-making processes 57 7.2 Skills development for personal empowerment and active citizenship 60 7.3 Freedom of expression and association 61 7.4 Media and social media consumption and usage 62 8 ENABLING ENVIRONMENT FOR ADOLESCENTS: 66 BARRIERS AND BOTTLENECKS 9 CONCLUSIONS 69 ACRONYMS ARROW NYCC Asia-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women National Youth Consultative Council BMI OECD Body Mass Index Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development DSW Department of Social Welfare PISA Programme for International Student Assessment JAG The Malaysian Joint Action Group for Gender Equality SDG Sustainable Development Goals GDP Gross Domestic Product SIS Sisters in Islam GOM Government of Malaysia STEM Science, technology, engineering and mathematics IYRES Institute for Youth Research Malaysia STI Sexually transmitted infection LFPR Labour force participation rate SRH Sexual and reproductive health LGBTQIA+ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, TVET Genderqueer, Queer, Intersexed, Agender, Asexual, Technical and Vocational Educational Training and Ally community UNFPA MBM United Nations Population Fund Majilis Belia Malaysia (Malaysia Youth Council) UNICEF MoYS United Nations Children's Fund Ministry of Youth and Sports WHO MPKK World Health Organization Majlis Perwakilan Kanak-Kanak (Children's Representative Council) YSYD Youth Societies and Youth Development MWFCD Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development NEET Neither attending school or training nor working NHMS National Health and Morbidity Survey NGO Non-profit organisation 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was written by Kirsten Anderson and Dr. Justine Barrett, under the supervision of Professor Dame Carolyn Hamilton at Coram International. Desk-based, survey and field-based research was carried out by Kirsten Anderson and Dr. Jastine Barrett. Research was managed and supervised by UNICEF Malaysia’s Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Team, and Communication for Development/ Adolescent Programme team. The authors would like to thank Radoslaw (Radek) Rzehak, Hyung Joon Kim, Jessica Sercombe, Pashmina Naz Ali, Fairuz Alia Jamaluddin, Anne Selvarani Albert and Kian Kheong Ho (KK) for their support and guidance throughout the research and drafting process. The authors are indebted to the staff at UNICEF Malaysia for generously giving their time to provide relevant materials, insights and support in the research and drafting of this report, and for giving up their time to complete the survey on which part of this analysis is based. They are also indebted to the many experts and stakeholders, including Government and NGO representatives, academics, UNICEF staff members from the Malaysia country office and EAPRO, and adolescents and young people who were involved in consultations and provided useful feedback and information to shape the report. 6 I © UNICEF Malaysia/2014/G.Pirozzi 1 Introduction: Purpose and Background 7 SITUATION ANALYSIS OF ADOLESCENTS IN MALAYSIA Adolescence is the formative liminal stage between community and civic affairs, and relationships, and childhood and adulthood, during which young lay important foundations for adulthood.4 Interventions people go through many physical and psychosocial during adolescence can also strengthen interventions changes. It is a critical period that is associated with made during earlier childhood and have lasting impacts ‘growing opportunities, capacities, aspirations, energy in building resilience into adulthood. Adolescence is and creativity, but also significant vulnerability.’1 It is also the period during which effective interventions also the stage at which children begin to forge their can disrupt harmful gender norms and stereotypes: own individual identities, borne from complex ‘the plasticity of the adolescent brain offers a prime interactions with their families, communities and opportunity not only to shape self-perception and culture,2 and during which gender expression and behaviour but also to manipulate social constructs’, gendered behaviours are established; by 15 / 16 years offering a critical window for influence.5 old, gender stereotypes have solidified, entrenching discriminatory norms that have harmful impacts on As such, this critical and formative developmental the wellbeing of boys and girls.3 period should inform UNICEF’s planning and programming in Malaysia. Adolescence is therefore a critical stage for intervention. Interventions that promote adolescent This report was developed during the drafting of a development and well-being can have a profound broader research report, the Situation Analysis of Women impact on a person’s life, including in the areas of and Children in Malaysia, which includes an assessment health, education and employment, participation in and analysis on outcomes for children in Malaysia. © UNICEF Malaysia/2019/Zahri 1 CRC Committee, General Comment No.20 (2016) on the Implementation of the Rights of the Child During Adolescence, CRC/C/GC/20, 2016, para. 2. 2 Ibid., para. 10. 3 ‘The lost boys’, 3(7) The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, 437, 30 May 2019. 4 CRC Committee, General Comment No.20 (2016) on the Implementation of the Rights of the Child During Adolescence, CRC/C/GC/20, 2016, para. 3. 5 ‘The lost boys’, 3(7) The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, 437, 30 May 2019. 8 Defining ‘adolescence’ and ‘youth’ youth groups.8 The National Youth Development Policy of Malaysia (1997) similarly defined youth as persons In this Situation Analysis (SitAn), adolescents are aged 15-40 years, whereas the National Youth Policy defined as ‘persons from 10 through 19 years of age’ (2015) which replaced it redefined youth as those aged in accordance with the definition adopted by WHO and between 15 and 30 years. followed by UNICEF.6 Children are persons aged 0-17 years, youth encompasses individuals aged 15-24 years, and young people are those aged 10-24 years. 1.1 Purpose and objectives In recognition of adolescence as a crucial life stage, In many instances, however, governmental data are UNICEF Malaysia has been working with and for not broken down according to these age bandings adolescents in the areas of education, protection, and definitions, and national bodies and policies use health, and participation, particularly supporting different definitions. In such circumstances, this will adolescents to be active agents of change to influence be made clear. For example, in recent years, there their development. A key component of UNICEF has been a move by the Malaysian government to Malaysia’s new country programme (2021-2025) will change the definition of ‘youth’. The Youth Societies and aim to support the Government of Malaysia to enhance Youth Development (YSYD) Act 2007 defined youth as adolescents’ rights, reduce disparities and foster greater persons aged 15 to 40 years of age, but, in July 2019, inclusion and participation, applying human rights-based an amendment to that law was passed by Parliament and gender responsive programming. that lowered the upper age from 40 to 30.7 The reason The need to undertake a rapid situation analysis that the Ministry of Youth and Sports introduced on adolescents has been identified in order to this amendment was to reduce the generation gap, improve UNICEF Malaysia’s understanding of accelerate youth maturity and reduce risky behaviour in adolescents’ situation and to serve as an important FIGURE 1: Definitions of children, adolescents and youth Note also that, as this SitAn focuses on ‘adolescents’, it does not report or analyse data relating to children more broadly: this is covered in the Situation Analysis of Women and Children in Malaysia (i.e. the main SitAn). 6 United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF Programme Guidance for the Second Decade: Programming with and for Adolescents, Programme Division, UNICEF, October 2018, p. 9. 7 New Straits Times, ‘“Youth” Now Defined as Those between 15 and 30’, 3 July 2019, available at: https://www.nst.com.my/news/ nation/2019/07/501288/youth-now-defined-those-between-15-and-30. Note that this change was controversial and a number of states are maintaining the upper age of 40 until the Bill is gazetted in 2021, when they will revisit the age issue.