DRUGS AND SEX: CHINESE YOUTH LOSE THEIR WAY

Malaysia's Chinese community is apprehensive over the emerging social
problems caused by increased drug use and promiscuity among teenagers

When a 13-year-old girl returned to her home in Ipoh one afternoon
last month, her mother slapped her and kicked her out of the house.

The reason: She had brought shame to the family by being arrested for
drugs. A photograph of her being led away by police officers was
plastered on the front pages of the Chinese newspapers.

Mr Michael Chong, head of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)
public service and complaints department, says such cases are common.
He deals with them almost daily -- a frequency that is making the
Chinese community nervous.

Nervous enough for MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Ling Liong Sik to shed
his normal reserve and state that more Chinese youths are being
shanghaied into the world of sex and drugs.

His concern is supported by some disturbing statistics.

In a raid on an Ipoh discotheque two weeks ago, hundreds of Chinese
youths were detained on suspicion of drug-related activities. The
youngest was a thirteen-year-old boy.

Several hundred more have been arrested in Kuala Lumpur over the past
two weeks while more than 500 were detained in Penang last weekend.
Police statistics show that more than 95 per cent of the youths were
Chinese aged between 19 and 35.

Just as damning are police figures which show that in the first four
months of this year, most of the 8,000 ecstasy users picked up were
Chinese.

"Where have we gone wrong?" Datuk Seri Ling lamented as he directed
the party's youth and women's wings to investigate the problem.

The presidential council, the MCA's highest decision-making body, has
received an in-depth briefing on the effects of the ecstasy pill.

Politicians and community leaders fear that uncontrolled drug use and
sexual promiscuity among young Chinese will lead to other social
problems -- high truancy and dropout rates, abortions, unwed mothers,
divorce and prostitution.

In short, it could derail the success that the Chinese have enjoyed in
Malaysia over the past decade.

Yet, strangely, counsellors blame the economic success of the Chinese
for the problems they are facing today.

Mr Chong says Chinese parents are more concerned with their own
careers and have little time to supervise their children.

They do not know what their children do after school or the people
they hang out with, he says. To compensate for the lack of attention,
they give their children generous allowances.

Also, by being more economically advanced than many of the Malays and
Indians in the country, Chinese youngsters become the automatic target
of drug pushers who sell ecstasy pills at between RM20 (S$9) and RM120
each, depending on the potency.

Federal Territory MCA chief Datuk Tan Chai Ho says Chinese parents
have forgotten the need to strike a balance -- the most important
lesson in the concept of "yin and yang".

"The tradition of being hard-working has been maintained, but parents
now don't seem to balance that with paying attention to their
children," he says, adding that he was receiving more reports of
unwanted pregnancies among Chinese teenagers.

A side effect of the drug-taking has been increased sexual
promiscuity.

The MCA has received complaints that young girls who pop ecstasy pills
in underground rave joints are being duped into having sex with male
patrons.

Sometimes, the girls are in their early teens.

Police say that the problem now is not confined to the major urban
centres of Kuala Lumpur and Penang, but has spread to smaller towns.