sufiah yusof 360 show in tv3 17april 08

Sentiasa cari anak

source : hmetro.com.my
LONDON: Halimaton Yusof, ibu pelajar pintar, Sufiah Yusof, tertanya-tanya sama ada usaha beliau dan suami melihat anak mereka berjaya, menjadi punca hidup anak keempatnya musnah.

Selepas beberapa tahun tertanya-tanya nasib Sufiah, 23, yang hilang, beliau memperoleh berita mengenai perkembangan terbarunya apabila akhbar News of the World menyiarkan berita anaknya melacur untuk membiaya pembelajarannya di Universiti Oxford.

Halimaton, 51, dalam temubual dengan Daily Mail mengaku sentiasa mencari anaknya dan sentiasa tertanya-tanya sama ada mampu melindungi Sufiah daripada cara didikan keras suaminya, Farooq Yusof.

“Sepanjang kehilangan Sufi, saya tak tahu sama ada dia masih hidup atau tidak. Seluruh tubuh saya menggeletar apabila dimaklumkan mengenai laporan akhbar itu. Ibu mana yang menjangkanya dan sebahagian daripada diri saya berasa, cita-cita kami mendesaknya untuk berjaya menjadi punca masalah ini.

“Saya tak tahu apa yang bermain di fikirannya, tapi saya tak mahu menghukumnya dan kami sekeluarga sentiasa menantinya dengan tangan terbuka. Saya bersedia menerimanya pada bila-bila masa.

“Kami mengharungi pelbagai masalah, tapi saya percaya satu hari nanti kami akan bersama kembali sebagai satu keluarga,” katanya yang menuntut cerai daripada suaminya, Farooq yang mengaku bersalah mencabul dua remaja berusia 15 tahun.

Hingga kini, cubaannya untuk menghubungi Sufiah di nombor telefon bimbit yang dimilikinya gagal.

“Saya tak lihat gambar yang disiar di akhbar dan saya tak mahu melihatnya. Anak lelaki saya menyatakan, lebih baik saya tidak melihatnya. Hakikatnya, saya ingin mengingati Sufiah seperti yang saya ingati sebelum ini.

“Saya tak tahu apa yang dia lakukan pada masa ini, sama ada ia untuk membuatkan ayahnya marah atau kerana kesempitan hidup. Saya harap dapat menyelami fikirannya, tapi tidak mampu berbuat demikian kerana Sufiah sebelum ini meminta saya supaya tidak memikirkannya.

“Saya minta pandangan peguam bagaimana saya dapat membantunya, tapi kami tak memiliki hak kerana dia sudah dewasa. Saya hanya mampu berdoa Sufiah kembali ke pangkal jalan,” katanya.

Apapun, Halimaton enggan menyalahkan suaminya.

“Tak guna saya menuding jari, tapi saya harap Farooq mahupun Sufi menilai semula keadaan mereka dan menyelesaikan masalah ini. Saya tahu Sufi gadis baik dan saya harap dia kembali kepada dirinya yang sebenar,” katanya.

Halimaton bernasib baik kerana hubungannya dengan empat lagi anaknya, Abraham, 26, Iskander, 21, Aisha, 25, dan Zuleika, 14, sangat rapat. Beliau menetap di rumah mereka di Coventry bersama Abraham, Iskander dan Zuleika, manakala Aisha menetap bersama suaminya di kawasan kediaman berhampiran dan sentiasa melawatnya.

Keempat-empat anaknya dikelaskan sebagai pelajar pintar. Iskander mendaftar di Universiti Warwick pada usia 12 tahun manakala Aisha pula 15 tahun, tapi Sufiah dianggap paling bijak.

Namun, dalam e-mel terakhirnya, Sufiah menyatakan bapanya adalah punca masalahnya. Iskander, pakar komputer, sedikit-sebanyak setuju dengan pandangan adiknya tapi pada masa sama menyatakan, bapanya bukan ganas.

“Bapa seolah-olah memiliki sesuatu untuk dibuktikan dan kami adalah cara dia membalas ketidakadilan dunia. Sikapnya berubah dalam sekelip mata, ada kalanya dia tenang tapi kemudian berubah menjadi garang dan memarahi kami. Atas sebab itu kami sentiasa ketakutan,” katanya.

Akibat tekanan, Sufiah akhirnya tidak pulang ke rumah selepas peperiksaan ketiganya di Oxford pada 22 Jun 2000, sebaliknya menaiki kereta api ke Bournemouth dan bekerja sebagai pelayan.

Polis menemuinya tiga minggu kemudian dan Sufiah meminta beliau dihantar ke rumah kebajikan.

“Saya kecewa dan tidak faham kenapa Sufi perlu lari. Dia tak pernah merungut, sebaliknya lebih banyak berdiam diri. Pada masa itu saya sedar, Sufi memendam perasaan. Apapun, saya turuti kemahuannya kerana paling penting untuk saya ialah dia selamat.

“Namun mungkin itu kesilapan saya kerana jika saya lebih tegas dan tidak menuruti kemahuannya, keadaan mungkin tidak menjadi seperti sekarang,” katanya.

Selain sikap Sufiah, Halimaton terkejut dengan hukuman penjara yang dikenakan terhadap suaminya.

“Saya pada mulanya tak percaya dengan tuduhan itu, tapi apabila beliau mengaku, saya terpaksa menerimanya.”

Perkembangan itu sekurang-kurangnya memberi harapan baru, tanpa Farooq yang dibencinya, Sufiah mungkin pulang.

Pengakuan terbaru Sufiah yusof? Apa komen anda?

dalam sibuk-sibuk sesetengah persatuan, perseorangan yang mengambil berat tentangnnya serta ibunya yang menitiskan air mata dalam temuramah terbaru, tapi sebaliknya pula pada sufiah yusof, sebenarnya, malas benar nak post link ni, tapi anda baca dan nilaikan sendiri, mengikut pemahamannya, dia selesa dengan 'kerjaya' dia..? apa yang anda rasa? apa komen anda?
temubual dengan sufiah yusof.. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/0604_hooker.shtml
- beserta gambar, video terbaru sufiah - amaran tidak sesuai untuk mereka yang bawah umur

Kes Sufiah, di mana silapnya?

source : kosmo.com.my
KES Sufiah Yusof yang pernah memasuki Universiti Oxford, Britain ketika berumur 13 tahun pada tahun 1997 tetapi melarikan diri dan kini menjual tubuh mendapat perhatian meluas mengenai layanan yang sepatutnya diberikan kepada kanak-kanak genius.

Dua buah akhbar iaitu Guardian di Britain dan Sydney Morning Herald, Australia semalam cuba mencari kesilapan dalam mendidik kanak-kanak pintar seperti Sufiah.

Pada tengah hari 1997, Sufiah berdiri antara bapanya, Farooq Yusof dan seorang adik perempuannya dengan memakai topi siswa kerana menjadi antara pelajar termuda memasuki Universiti Oxford ketika berumur 13 tahun untuk jurusan matematik.

Farooq membimbing Sufiah di rumahnya bersama-sama dua adiknya yang lain dengan mengikuti teknik pembelajaran khas untuk mereka.

Pada minggu lalu, iaitu 10 tahun selepas mencipta sejarah tersebut, kisah Sufiah di mana ibunya kelahiran Malaysia, Halimahton, muncul dalam sebuah akhbar dan dilaporkan menjadi pelacur dengan bayaran £130 (RM828) sejam di sebuah flat di Manchester, Britain.

Pengerusi Persidangan Persatuan Ibu Bapa Kebangsaan Australia, Margaret Morrisey menyatakan kebimbangannya mengenai kanak-kanak pintar seperti Sufiah yang pernah belajar di rumah dan memasuki universiti ketika umur terlalu muda ketika dia tidak didedahkan serta dilengkapi dengan cara untuk menghadapi isu sosial.

"Jika anda memperoleh anugerah kepintaran ketika berumur 12 atau 15 tahun anda sebenarnya masih berumur 12 atau 15 tahun, dan menempatkan kanak-kanak tersebut di kalangan mereka berumur 18 hingga 19 tahun merupakan satu resipi bencana," katanya kepada akhbar Sydney Morning Herald.

Pensyarah matematik di Universiti Cambridge, Tim Gowers menyatakan bahawa tidak ada sebarang keuntungan diperoleh pelajar yang mengikuti pembelajaran di universiti ketika usia terlalu muda walaupun mereka mahir.

"Saya tidak menyokong supaya orang ramai memasuki universiti dengan cepat (usia terlalu muda) terutamanya terhadap pelajar yang memasuki universiti ketika berumur pertengahan remaja.

"Daripada sejumlah pelajar universiti yang belajar ketika usia muda, mereka dilihat tidak mempunyai sebarang keuntungan.

"Pada umumnya, mereka tidak menjadi terlalu berjaya," tambahnya.

Menurutnya, memutuskan untuk melahirkan genius terlalu muda seperti dilakukan oleh bapa Sufiah adalah mengundang risiko masalah emosi dan keuntungan yang diperoleh tidak jelas untuk jangka panjang.

Profesor itu menyebut kes seorang lagi kanak-kanak perempuan pintar, Ruth Lawrence dari Brighton yang lulus dari Universiti Oxford ketika berumur 13 tahun selepas diajar di rumah oleh bapanya ketika dia berumur lima tahun.

Ruth kini menjadi profesor di Baitulmaqdis dan berjanji dia tidak memberi didikan terhadap anak-anaknya seperti yang dilakukan oleh bapanya itu.

Kerjaya universitinya juga dibayangi oleh bapanya.

Pengarah Pusat Kanak-Kanak Pintar di Australia, Dr. Peter Congdon berkata, mendesak kanak-kanak memasuki universiti ketika berumur 14 tahun adalah memusnahkan zaman kanak-kanak.

Pada 2000, selepas peperiksaan terakhir di Oxford, Sufiah menghilangkan diri tetapi dia ditemui dua minggu lalu dengan bekerja sebagai pelayan hotel di Bournemouth.

Ketika itu, dia meminta kepada pihak berkuasa supaya tidak dihantar kembali kepada ibu bapanya kerana menganggap zaman kanak-kanaknya umpama tinggal dalam neraka.

Pada Januari lalu, bapanya dipenjarakan selama 18 bulan selepas mencabul dua gadis berumur 15 tahun ketika mereka menghadiri kelas tuisyen matematiknya.

Novelis dan penulis buku Gifted, Nikita Lalwani dalam kolumnisnya di akhbar The Observer menyatakan kemarahannya mengenai layanan yang diberikan oleh Britain terhadap Sufiah.

Menurut Lalwani, petunjuk yang diberikan oleh Sufiah itu adalah kerajaan perlu menyediakan inisiatif untuk aknak-kanak pintar supaya mereka tidak mengakhiri kemuncak hidup di universiti dalam usia terlalu muda.

Akhbar The Guardian dari Britain mendedahkan mengenai cabaran yang dihadapi oleh seorang pelajar remaja yang memasuki sebuah universiti ketika berumur 16 tahun, Kelly Turner.

"Pelajar-pelajar perempuan lain (yang berumur 18 tahun ke atas) berbual mengenai muzik, pakaian dan lelaki. Kadang-kadang saya berasa kesepian," kata Kelly. - Agensi

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Sufiah Yusof's case has thrown a spotlight on the practice of hot-housing children for academic success, writes Lee Glendinning - Sydney Morning Herald - 5/4/08

ON A bright afternoon in 1997, Sufiah Yusof stood sandwiched between her father and younger sister, grinning into the middle distance. Dressed in an academic cap and gown, she posed for a photo after becoming one of the youngest undergraduates to gain entry to Oxford, aged just 13.

Last weekend, a little over 10 years later, she is pictured in grainy black and white images that have surfaced in a British newspaper. They reveal the 23-year-old has reportedly begun working as a prostitute, hiring herself out for £130 ($285) an hour in a Manchester flat.

Just what happened in the intervening years has been revisited this week - and much of it surrounds the rule laid down by her father in the family home, which appears to have been the precipice for her later unravelling.

Farooq Yusof believed that his children - and others around the world - could be made into geniuses (something he once referred to as "producing more Sufiahs") through his methods of accelerated learning.

His five children were subjected to intense home tutoring that began with an Islamic prayer routine in the morning, and studies in a cold house to aid concentration. Shallow thinking and access to popular culture were forbidden. Games of tennis were tough and competitive.

His spartan program propelled Sufiah into one of the best universities in the world, but she effectively ended up in a strange purgatory between childhood and adulthood - and sadly cheated of both.

British research on hothousing is scant and as it falls into a loose gap between the law, government departments and pastoral care, it is under no particular jurisdiction.

Margaret Morrisey, chairwoman of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, spoke of her concern for child prodigies such as Sufiah who are home-schooled and arrive early at university when they are not equipped to deal with it emotionally or socially.

"If you're considered to be gifted academically at 12 or 15, you are still 12 or 15, and putting these children in the company of 18- and 19-year-olds is a recipe for disaster," she said.

"The signs are telling us that this is something we need to seriously address - not necessarily in legislation but more a government initiative to provide for and challenge gifted children in some way so that they don't end up at university so young."

A report in the Guardian this week revealed the number of students under 18 at English universities has risen by half in the past six years. This has been attributed, in part, to a change in discrimination laws introduced two years ago that require academic institutions to consider all applicants on merit, regardless of age.

Professor Tim Gowers, who teaches mathematics at Cambridge University, says there is no benefit in early undergraduate studies, no matter how proficient the student.

"I'm not at all in favour of accelerating people, especially not students attending university in their mid-teens," he said. "Deciding in advance that you are going to produce a genius, as Sufiah's father seems to have done, carries the risk of all sorts of emotional problems, and the benefits are not just clear in the long run.

"Of the students I have watched who have come to study early there don't seem to be any advantages at all. In general, they don't go on to become extremely successful."

He cites the case of Ruth Lawrence, a child prodigy from Brighton who graduated from Oxford when she was 13 after being home tutored by her father from the age of five. Her university career consisted of being chaperoned and shadowed by her father to every tutorial

and lecture. She is now a university professor in Jerusalem and has vowed she will not hothouse her own children.

"Pushing children into university at the age of 14 is destroying their childhood, and you end up with a lopsided, maladjusted individual," said Dr Peter Congdon, consultant educational psychologist and director of the Gifted Children's Centre. "What I have learnt is that gifted children can go in any direction - they are just as likely to become a criminal as they are a moral philosopher."

In 2000, after her final exam for the academic year, Sufiah vanished, sparking a nationwide police search before she was found two weeks later working as a hotel waitress in Bournemouth. At the time she asked not to be returned to her parents, describing her childhood as a living hell.

"I've finally had enough of 15 years of physical and emotional abuse," she said.

In January her father was jailed for 18 months after indecently assaulting two 15-year-old girls he was tutoring. In 1992 he had been jailed for mortgage fraud.

Nikita Lalwani, author of Gifted, a book inspired by Sufiah's story, wrote this week about her anger at what the country had done to Sufiah.

"The Yusofs have played their painful family drama out on the media stage and we have lapped it up," she wrote.

"We like our wunderkind stars to be young in this country … and woe betide any discovery that … they might be battling with the same dirty confusions and hand-me-down horrors as the rest of us."

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I'm Every Woman: Why Sufiah why?

By : Zaharah Othman - nst.com.my

2008/04/02

ZAHARAH OTHMAN had been in the home of Sufiah Yusof witnessing how her parents had hot-housed the math prodigy and her siblings — and her heart goes out to the mother reeling from her daughter’s tragic downfall.

THE last time I met her, we were both in the surau.

It was the Ramadan of 2005. She was in her black jubbah and hijab and was a picture of sweetness and confidence.

I was truly glad that I had met her after all this time, and after all the publicity surrounding her disappearance.

The Sufiah Yusof that I met then was a married woman fully in charge of her newfound life as a student at a London university. She proudly introduced me to her husband.
But she had also assumed another name. She introduced herself to me as Fatimah instead of Sufiah, the identity that she has now forsaken.

This week I saw her again in pictures depicting her in various stages of nudity adorning the pages of a British Sunday tabloid.

Now a divorcee, she had again assumed another name — that of Shelpa Lee — advertising her services in a website, apparently for £130 (RM822) an hour to make ends meet.

Three years had made a lot of difference in the life of Sufiah Yusof, who shot to fame when, at age 13, she was offered a place at the prestigious Oxford University to study mathematics.

Her parents were the equally clever and talented Farooq Yusof and Halimaton, a Malaysian, who both gave up their jobs to home tutor their children.

The Malaysian media in the United Kingdom were alerted to the story of this child genius mainly because her mother was a Malaysian from Johor. Because of this, she was also offered financial aid for her studies by the Malaysian government.

It was a shy and quiet Sufiah then who posed nervously with a mortar board at the lawn of St Hilda’s College for a world media hungry for stories about how a child so young could make it to university.

And although the media respected her university’s request to leave her alone during the years she was there, the interest was always there.

There had already been a lot of talk about the successes and failures of child prodigies like her.

Prophets of doom predicted about how ill-equipped such children were in facing the world in spite of having the gift most parents crave for in their children.

The media was back baying at the front door of her parents’ house in Coventry when Sufiah failed to return home one day.

It sparked off a massive hunt for the child genius who had proven the cynics right about how the girl who had been brought up in a strict regime of study and no fun was seeking the childhood she had been denied.

As a Malaysian parent, I was at first quite envious that Sufiah’s parents had been blessed with so many clever and gifted children.

I had been in their living room-cum-classroom with mathematical formulae on the boards and walls where little Zulaikha, the youngest who was then perhaps three or four, was playing under the table, drawing the human skeleton and singing the rhyme about what bone was connected to which bone.

I had also been in the kitchen where their mother told me how she would teach the children in a fun way.

But the fun stopped with the strict regime imposed by their Pakistani father, who not only formulated the accelerated learning theory, but also dictated who the children played with. I was told that Sufiah’s only friends then were her tennis mates and those she tutored.

Later at university, she was again isolated, living not in the halls of residence like other students, but in a flat where her parents took turns to accompany her.

Then one day Sufiah decided not to turn up at the station.

She was found later at an Internet cafe in Bournemouth where she regularly dispatched e-mails, sometimes venomous ones and sometimes ones that were very telling about her life at home, which she described as a living hell.

I am very sure when her parents had set out to home school their children, they had their offspring’s best intentions at heart.

Now with the media back hounding Sufiah and her mother, fingers are being pointed at the parents once again for hot-housing their children.

Sufiah’s fame and now notoriety were compounded by that of her father’s. In the same week that Farooq was jailed for molesting girls he was tutoring, Halimaton was coping with the news of her prodigal child.

My mind wanders back to the time in the kitchen when she told her children about how the water in the boiling rice would turn into steam.

As a mother, as a woman, my heart goes out to her.

* Zaharah Othman is a Malaysian writer who lives in London.

Jabatan Pelajar Malaysia di London akan siasat kes Sufiah

02-04-2008 07:17:05 PM
oleh ZANARIAH ABD MUTALIB

PUTRAJAYA: Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi akan mengarahkan Jabatan Pelajar Malaysia di London untuk menyiasat kes pelajar pintar matematik, Sufiah Yusof yang dipercayai 'melacurkan' diri di Salford, Manchester, untuk menyara kehidupan.

Menteri Pengajian Tinggi, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, berkata hasil daripada maklumat itu nanti akan digunakan kementeriannya untuk cuba membantu gadis berusia 23 tahun itu.

“Kita akan cuba dapatkan maklumat sama ada Sufiah benar-benar melacur untuk menampung kehidupan dan pengajiannya atau ada sebab-sebab lain.

“Bagaimanapun, kita percaya, dia melakukan pekerjaan itu bukan untuk menampung pengajian kerana dia dipercayai sudah lama meninggalkan pengajiannya di Oxford.

“Mungkin ada sebab lain yang mendorongnya berbuat demikian termasuk masalah yang dihadapinya dalam keluarga,” kata Mohamed Khaled selepas sidang media pengumuman Anugerah Akademik Negara 2007 yang mula dibuka, di sini, Rabu.

Ditanya mengenai kemungkinan negara akan membawa pulang gadis yang ibunya berasal dari Malaysia itu, Khaled berkata banyak faktor yang perlu diambil kira.

“Sufiah adalah warga British walaupun ibunya berasal dari negara ini.

“Justeru, kita tak boleh membawanya pulang tambahan lagi dia sudah berusia 23 tahun dan boleh membuat keputusan sendiri,” katanya.

Ahad lalu, akhbar News of The World edisi online melaporkan Sufiah mengiklankan ‘perkhidmatannya’ dengan menggunakan nama samaran Shilpa Lee melalui internet dengan tawaran 130 pound (RM830) untuk setiap sesi.

Sufiah pernah menjadi bahan berita kira-kira sedekad lalu sebagai kanak-kanak pintar dalam Matematik apabila diterima memasuki Universiti Oxford ketika berusia 13 tahun.

link mstar

"I was beaten," says Sufiah

LONDON March 9 - Child prodigy Sufiah Yusof, who enrolled at Oxford University at 13, for a maths degree and then disappeared under mysterious circumstances appeared on television here on Thursday night to say that all she wanted was freedom from her over-domineering father's unrelenting push for her to succeed.

Sufiah, born of a Pakistani father Farooq Yusof and Malaysian mother Halimahton, was admitted to Oxford University as one of the youngest to be enrolled for a degree.

She equalled the record of another child prodigy, Ruth Lawrence, who enrolled at Oxbridge also to study mathematics at an age when her contemporaries were still grappling with the problems of teenage life.

Appearing in a pre-recorded interview in the "Tonight" programme on an independent channel here, Sufiah who has now discarded her hijab which she wore at university and appearing fleshier and fuller-faced, said that she did not want to see her `bullying' father again.

She also claimed that her father also used harsh disciplinary methods which included beating and mental intimidation for her to excel academically as well as in sport.

Farooq, in an interview with Bernama today, strongly denied allegations of abuse and said of the programme - in which he and wife Halimahton saw Sufiah for the first time since her `disappearance' - that certain facts have emerged from it which he did not know before.

Farooq, who had spent nearly 10 hours with representatives of Bournemouith Council in the High Court before the screening of the programme on Thursday night, said that the interview on television revealed to them more than what the programme-makers intended.

The programme was shown to the Family Division of the High Court here hours before it was aired, and before an injunction was denied to the Bournemouth Council which is in legal custody of Sufiah.

Commenting on this, Farooq said it was ironic that he and Bournemouth Council which had taken charge of Sufiah without his consent were now on the same side to protect her interest.

The "Today" programme, hosted by Trevor McDonald, ITV's star newscaster, with interviews by Martin Bashir who won fame when the late Princess Diana made her frank revelations about adultery in an interview with him, made no new revelations about Sufiah beyond that are already in the public domain.

Sufiah disappeared to re-surface in the seaside town of Bournemouith where she was spotted by police in an internet cafe.

From there she supposedly sent an e-mail to her younger sister accusing her parents of "physical and emotional" abuse. She read this e-mail out in the interview.

Farooq is adamant that there is something mysterious about this sudden disappearance and accusation, contending that Martin Bashir did not ask the one crucial question of Sufiah: Did she send the e-mail herself?

He said he is now in consultation with solicitors for further action against the programme makers and the people who are responsible for his daughter's disappearance.

Regarding allegations made by Sufiah in the interview that her parents moved near to where she was studying so that they could continue exerting control, Farooq's reply was that she was then 13, an age when a child needed the supervision of her parents.

Both Farooq and wife Halimahton are of the opinion that there are forces behind their daughter's disappearance who are intent on rubbishing their achievement and are also influencing Sufiah against her will.

Sufiah's being put in the care of foster parents is also of wider concern to the Muslim community here who are unhappy with the idea of taking away a Muslim child by a state authority to be put in the care of non Muslim foster parents without access being given to community representatives or her natural parents.

"There are people now - not just myself - who are keen to get into the real story of Sufiah Yusof and the circumstances of her disappearance. The reality is the complete opposite of what was presented on television," Farooq said.

link - utusan