Help Sufiah?

We all know the story, it had the makings of a top-rated soap opera. A family of child prodigies who grabbed headlines as each child attained university entrance at a younger age. Then the youngest runs away from home, and stories of child abuse leaks out. The family makes up, the 'problem' child settles down, then ups and divorces her husband and is found out later to be prostituting herself. This all takes place over more than a decade in jolly old England, but drew great interest in local papers because the mother of these children is Malaysian.

So as Malaysians, we tumpang bangga (about the half-Malaysian children being geniuses, not the other part). Nevermind that these children are naturalised citizens of the UK and probably never gave us much thought.

Now as news of Sufiah the girl genius turned £130 per good-time hooker filters back to the Motherland, our concerned leaders decide to take action:

Effort To Save Former Oxford Prodigy Sufiah Yusof, Now A Vice Girl

KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 (Bernama) -- The Prime Minister's Department and the Malaysian Missionary Foundation (Yadim) will try to assist former child maths genius Sufiah Yusof, now aged 23 and fending for herself as a prostitute in Salford, Manchester. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Dr Zahid Hamidi said they would help the gifted girl to return to the right path through the "Save Sufiah Programme".

"The first thing we should try to do is to contact her mother or arrange a meeting with Sufiah to find out the real reasons for her to turn to prostitution, offering her services through the Internet and using the name Shilpa Lee," he told reporters after attending a biefing by Yadim here Tuesday.

It has been reported in the "News of the World" that Sufiah is now a 130- pound an-hour hooker operating from her dingy back street flat. The "Save Sufiah programme" is headed by Deputy Minister in the PM's Department Datuk Dr Mashitah Ibrahim who will come up with strategies to assist Sufiah as soon as possible.

Sufiah created news when she was accepted into Oxford University at age just 13. Her mother, Malaysian-born Halimaton Yusof from Muar, Johor, and her father, Farooq Yusof from Pakistan both tutored her and her siblings at home.

Later on, YADIM went on a public appeal for funds for the "Save Sufiah programme", because "we don't even have money for flight tickets". Flight tickets? How do we even know she'll talk to you after you've spent the people's money for flight tickets to the UK?

That's first-class hypocracy if you ask me. YADIM spoke about "guiding her back to the right path". Sure, while taking a paid-for holiday to the UK. What about the scores of young girls prostituting themselves here, and not by their own choice either? We all know how they're treated: religious officials storm and barge brothels here, publicly humiliate these girls, splash their pictures all over the newspapers "as a lesson to others" (they actually invite the media to join them on these 'vice raids') , and then throw them in jail. What happened to guiding these girls back to the right path? What, they're mostly not Malaysians anyway? How Malaysian do you think Sufiah fancies herself? If you say you're doing this in the name of Islam, then why the double standards? I'd gladly pay your bus fare, no, make that your cab fare to Chow Kit, if you extend those 'strategies' to help Sufiah to those who are doing what she's doing because they simply don't have another choice.