SEPTEMBER 25 — I have always felt revulsion seeing children who lived in group homes, selling wares by the roadside or asking for donations.

No, I wasn’t repulsed by the children. Never, the children.

I was disgusted that it is allowed.

We make Malaysians sign up for ID cards and many parents get ID cards for their kids.

All that information, in so many databases, and we don’t know if somewhere a child is starving unless someone says so.

It’s unforgivable that in this age where we make so many excuses for the gross invasion of privacy that we cannot at least know how Malaysian children are doing.

No longer is it falling through the cracks; children are falling into chasms and great divides.

In an apartment complex it is perfectly plausible that one family’s children are all well and eating while just a few doors away, a harried mother is feeding her baby condensed milk.

Government overreach?

Some would argue that keeping track of children and their welfare would be too much meddling in citizens’ private lives.

I think there’s a big difference between finding out what consenting adults do in their spare time and ensuring the welfare of children.

We already insist on registering and documenting births; we should also make it easier so that even those who live in the interior will have no problem getting birth certificates for their newborns.

I know it’s a big undertaking and it might seem impossible but we spend money on far more frivolous things.

Why can we not make use of the information already stored in various government databases to not just track children but to make sure that children in homes or poverty don’t end up being invisible?

We require permits for so many things; yet why is it too simple to open supposed care homes and why aren’t there more complaints about children being forced to work or beg?

At the same time, I don’t advocate we police kids overmuch.

A lot of things we call "social ills” are just energy unable to be channelled elsewhere.

What I want is a way to make sure kids get access to food, shelter and all the tools they need to navigate adulthood when it comes.

Instead we penalise them for being kids — acting out and not knowing how else to spend their time because no one has given them options.

Most of all, stop making kids beg at the roadsides for people who do not have their best interests at heart because no one, truly no one, who loves children would make them earn their supper.

Because that’s our job as grownups and I think more grownups need to do their jobs and keep our kids safe, especially in a world so hostile to them despite world leaders wringing their hands about falling birthrates.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.