A sad tragedy…….

Sufiah Yusof is a sad story about a Malaysian girl who had a gift that made her a Maths genius and was accepted at Oxford University at a young age of 13. You would think with the extraordinary gift she would have grown up to do many wonderful things.

Instead, we hear of a sad tragedy of a daughter who was unhappy and parents who might have pushed her too far up to the point she has been claimed of calling home “hell and vowed never to return back with her parents”.

It was thought Sufiah would finally get her happy ending in 2004 when she married a trainee lawyer Jonathan Marshall but unfortunately this was short-lived since they divorced thirteen months later.

Recently, her father has been jailed for eighteen months at Coventry Court after being found guilty for sexually assaulting two girls whom he taught in his home tutoring classes.

The sad story of this family continued when it was found Sufiah had resorted to the oldest profession in the book –prostitution and advertised herself on her website as a sex escort.

So where did it all go wrong?? This girl had a troubled childhood and parents who appear to have never listened to what Sufiah wanted. This had resulted in her rebelling against everything the parents wished for. There have been several times where she had cried out for attention and help e.g. when she ran away to Bournemouth to become a waitress in an internet cafe.

There have been reports that due to the recent incident the Prime Minister’s department and Malaysian Missionary Foundation (YADIM) are trying to provide help in a campaign called “Save Sufiah Programme”. I wonder whether this is a worthwhile campaign.

Firstly, her parents are permanently residing in UK and when her mom was asked to comment on her daughter’s recent activity her comment was "I didn't know anything about that. I am not in touch with Sufiah any more. I have got no comment."

I do sympathise with Sufiah’s situation but until she realises herself she needs help these campaign programmes will be useless to her. I do hope she will be able to get help but she needs to do this at her own accord.

In my own humble opinion, instead of the government spending time and effort saving this girl maybe it is worth thinking about the numerous other less fortunate girls who have no education and have to resort to the sex trade to earn a living in order to survive. It would be a more worthwhile cause if the government would spend more time tackling the root causes of troubled teenagers rather than focusing on this one person.

I hope Sufiah finds happiness in this life and the hereafter but I wish that the government could be as concerned about the numerous other teenagers as they are with this one girl....