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KUANTAN: Three sisters living in extreme squalor in a pet shop space have been sent to a children’s home until their guardian can provide a better living environment.
The girls, aged nine, ten and twelve, lived with their uncle on an upper floor of a store in Lorong Seri Damai Perdana 57, full of garbage.
The filthy conditions were compounded by the presence of 13 dogs, a civet, a turtle and a bird that the girls were raising.
Layers of animal waste could be seen on the floor, enveloping the entire space in a noxious miasma.
SJKC Taman Tas Parent Teacher Association President Yeoh Kok Bin said the exact whereabouts of the girls’ mother is unknown as she had not been home for three years while the father was working in Kuala Rompin.
“The father rarely returns home and is difficult to locate. The girls live with their uncle who is away all day and only returns at night.
“They eat instant noodles in the afternoon and evening, or the older sister cooks or her uncle brings home takeout,” he said on Monday (September 21).
Yeoh said the girls are of mixed Orang Asli-Chinese descent, rarely attending school and would give excuses such as falling asleep when asked why they were absent.
He added that they had been left behind in their studies because of this.
The school principal visited them and even gave them mattresses and pillows last month, but the dogs chewed on them.
Yeoh said that the school administration had contacted the girls’ uncle on numerous occasions to discuss their living situation, but always avoided meeting with them.
Meanwhile, Teruntum Assemblyman Sim Chon Siang said that although this was not in his constituency, the matter required immediate attention as girls should not be allowed to continue to live in such a woefully neglected situation.
Sim got the Department of Social Welfare to intervene and, after talking with the girls and their uncle, agreed to send all three of them to the Rapha Children’s Home temporarily.
“The Department of Social Welfare will give the uncle time to clean up his living space and provide a suitable bedroom for the children or find a new home before they are allowed to return to live with their family,” Sim said.
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