Indian Muslim News - EDUCATION

'IIUM is an Islamic territory. No dating. Allah is watching us'

According to reports, the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) has become the first “no dating place” in Malaysia. A banner, which reads "IIUM is an Islamic territory. No dating. Allah is watching us", has been put up at its Gombak campus to warn the students from dating in the university compound. The banner has been placed at a square near some shops and a bank.

“The banner was not an initiative by the university authorities. It was put up by Maaruf Club in conjunction with the Campus Dakwah Project during Ramadhan,” a IIUM undergraduate said and added, “The club's aims, among others, are to encourage students to perform the good, avoid the bad and to monitor the students' moral conduct.”

Meanwhile, a Universiti Malaya study conducted a decade ago said that one in three female secondary school students admitted they were sexually active. Pointing towards the study, child psychology researcher Datuk Dr Chiam Heng Keng, while addressing a seminar on 'Training our Children on Personal Safety' at the Sarawak Women's Bureau recently said that if that was a decade ago, then it can only be imagined what it would be like today. The study was conducted on the habits of girls aged 12 to 18. The study found that some had sex for pleasure, but most prostituted themselves for the money to buy expensive goods, such as handphones and branded clothes. Surprisingly these students did not go to parks or other public places to have sex. They did it at home, according to the study. Dr Chiam was professor of Social Psychology at the university when the study was conducted. She is now a Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner.

"It gives them (the girls) the feeling 'I'm very cool because my friends are also doing it', and it must be right because everyone is doing it. Since having sex was common among students then, I wouldn't be surprised if pupils in primary schools would do it, too, in time to come. Parents should be more alert when their children brought home friends of the opposite sex to study. It was best not to let them use the bedroom to do their work," Dr Chiam said.