Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The girls are not so innocent: Readers React

Dec 29, 2010
 
By Lee Jia Xin

THE two girls who were aged 12 and 15 when they were involved in the case where a National Institute of Education (NIE) trainee had sex with them a few years ago, are not as innocent as they seem.

This is the overall view of straitstimes.com readers when they reacted to the media reports on Wednesday.

Aaron Kok Chun Cheong, 23, a second-year trainee at NIE, was sentenced to 15 months' jail on Tuesday.

He committed the offences in 2007 and 2008 while serving national service.

Many argued that the girls were complicit in the act, especially the then-12-year-old girl who had multiple sexual partners.

'The (then) 12-year-old girl is not innocent because she had a few partners and even became pregnant (with one of them, and not Kok himself),' said Gladys Dee.

[Comment: So kids want to play computer games all day long. Should adults play with them? Kids wanna try alcohol, should adults let them. Kids want to have sex with you, should you? Kids are impulsive and immature. Adults have a responsibility to them. Taking advantage of them is wrong. Justifying your actions because they initiated it is just an excuse.]

Echoing her sentiments was HS Ng who felt that the girls were not gullible but fully aware of their actions, and added that sex among teenagers is so 'rampant' these days.

But others are concerned about how teachers seem to be in the news lately as evidenced from the ex-MOE scholar Jonathan Wong, who was arrested in the United Kingdom for possessing child pornography.

Another reader Jacq Oh worried that 'paedophiles are infiltrating the teaching population as a means to reach out to their prey'.

Reader Siti Nor'aini Abdul Samat joined in the call for NIE to be more stringent in their candidate selections.

A Ministry of Education spokesman said it would initiate disciplinary proceedings against Kok, with a view to terminating him from service.

She said the ministry adopted a stringent recruitment process to ensure that suitable applicants with a passion to teach are selected, apart from academic qualifications.

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