A/HRC/44/40/Add.3 • Until June 2019, the Department of Social Welfare had allocated RM118,499,850 for 66,916 families who are below current Poverty Line Income receiving Financial Assistance for Children. Indirectly, there are almost 197,500 children receiving this beneficiary. Paragraph 65 Stunting is a key marker of malnutrition and a problem that has dramatic consequences for those affected. Yet one in five Malaysian children under five are stunted, a higher level than in countries with a similar GDP. Children born into lower income families have a higher likelihood of being underweight or stunted, and a study in Kelantan found that children in food-insecure households were three times more likely to be stunted. A 2018 UNICEF survey of low income flats in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor found 15 percent of children under 5 were underweight and 22 percent were stunted. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • According to a landscape analysis report on Double Burden of Child Malnutrition in Malaysia by the Ministry of Health and UNICEF Malaysia in 2019, there was no association between household wealth and stunting among children from poorer households. The report also showed that the predictors of stunting among children under 5 years in Malaysia were maternal characteristics, child feeding and care practices as well as maternal education level and ethnicity. • As for the statement on the findings of a study in Kelantan, the statement cannot only be based on a single study to conclude the nutrition situation in Malaysia as there was another study conducted in Kuala Lumpur (Sharif ZM, Ang M, 2001) that reported otherwise. We appreciate if this statement can be reviewed taking into considerations of other study findings. Paragraph 66 Child labor is also a problem in Malaysia, including on palm oil plantations where an oppressive quota system drives families to bring their children to work as unpaid laborers. And Malaysia has registered about 15,000 marriages involving children over the past decade, with Muslim girls allowed to marry before the age of 16 with permission from a Syariah court judge. Poverty is a widely recognized driver of child marriage, which is used as a coping mechanism for poor families in Malaysia and in turn has severe implications for children, including elevated risks of health problems and loss of education. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • Malaysian Government has introduced national strategic plan to address issues on child marriage. This plan has identified 6 main factors contributing to child marriages issues and will be addressed by changes in relevant policies, law reform and awareness programmes. Gender Paragraph 69 One women’s rights organization said that there were inadequate shelter alternatives and no clear financial or housing assistance for survivors of domestic violence, so the majority of women, often with their children, end up returning to abusive situations to avoid homelessness. Users of crisis shelters are generally unable to access divorce because of the cost of litigation, and because proceeding without a lawyer would require undergoing a mandatory reconciliation process alongside their abuser. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • One of the key amendments to the bill is the introduction of an Emergency Protection Order (EPO) which allows social welfare officers to grant victims immediate protection against their abusers. 35