PUTRAJAYA – He says he might as well be dead since people only see him as just a piece of garbage.

“I was born in a most humiliating way.  Society scorns me. They cheat and abuse me.

“Often, I feel, my mother should have just killed me,” said 23-year-old Khairul (not  his real name) in a recent spcial report in Malay tabloid, Harian Metro.

We often read in the papers and have also seen and heard on TV and the net about babies being dumped by the roadside or at various discreet places by culprits who want to hide the shame of bringing an unwanted child into this world.

In most cases, the abandoned babies are found dead. More gruesome is when stray dogs and back alley cats nibble at their body parts.

In a few cases, the babies are found alive and then taken to hospitals, and later to welfare homes, to be cared by nurses and welfare workers.

When 'unwanted babies' grow up

But what happens when they are grown up and have to fend for themselves?

“It’s a difficult life,” said Khairul. "Often, I feel that abandoned children like me should just die  instead of being saved and, later, forced to find our way in this cruel world."

Khairul,  born to Chinese parents, said he was  picked up from a rubbish dump in Mentakab, Pahang.

He has a small child, "my most precious possession." His wife, however, has died but he's not saying how and when she passed away.

Recalling the stories of his childhood,  he said he was brought up in a welfare home in Kuantan until he was three years old. He said he was found, with a birth certificate in the cloth that bundled him, near a rubbish dump by a Chinese man.

He said he was later taken by a Chinese family but, as it turned out, his foster father was an alcoholic and , when the man was drunk, would abuse and hit him.

No skills,no work

He added that his foster mother later carried him away from the house and made a police report against her husband. Khairul was then moved to a welfare home in Cheras and, later, to another home in Kuala Kangsar, Perak.

He said when he was 18, he left the welfare home but since he was not well-equipped with any kind of skills, he just “floated arround like a stringless kite.”

He said it was ironic that the Social Welfare Department would care for a child until he or she is 18, and then leaves the youngster to drift on his or her own in a merciless  world.

“The problem is going to be repeated again and again. There must be a stop to unwanted babies and, at the same time, the rescued babies must be given the right care and skills for them to survive in the the adult  world later.

Khairul said he had lived with the stigma of being an ‘unwanted child' for all of his life.’

"I have never been happy because people are always looking down on me.

“I have never known parental or family love and I cannot get a decent job because I hold a red IC (the identity card for  immigrants).  I am a Malaysian citizen but I cannot prove it.

“Truly, I am sick of being labelled an immigrant. I am not an Indonesian or Bangloadeshi. I am Malaysian. It is stated in my IC that I was born in this country.

“It’s so difficult to do anything or to move about freely. It’s so difficult to get work and when I do, I get cheated by my employers. If I want to take action, I cannot because I am considered an alien and not Malaysian.”

Khairul said if everyone of the abandoned babies grew up to be like him, the country would be messy with a lot of unwanted social ills.

“The boys or men will grow up to be criminals,  thieves and rapists while the girls will just end up as prostitutes.

“Of course, when we are caught, we will go to prision. This is not so bad as we can, at least, expect to be fed. In the streets, we are always hungry,” he said.

'I am capable of being a father'

Khairul’s misery does not stop there.  He said his only possession in this world – his 14-month-old son –  is being snatched away by his sister-in-law, the sister of his late wife.

He said he was separated from the child for nine months  until the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) gave him temprary custody of the child.

Khairul, who became a Muslim in May 2007, said his sister-in-law insulted him as being an ‘unwanted child’ and is not qualified at all to be a father to the boy.

“Her words cut  like a knife. She has no right to dispute my capability as a father, since the child is my flesh-and-blood.

“The baby was born from a bond of love between me and my late wife,” he said, in a choking voice to control his emotion.

“It is my respnsibility to take care of my own child. I can afford to keep him. I don’t want his liofe to be wasted and neglected like mine.”

 “People like me are in desperate need of help. We don’t want to be oppressed forever.

“Though we were the ‘unwanted children’ left to die by our unknown parents, we should be given a chance to earn a livelihood,” he  said. – Malaysian Mirror