Gender-based violence: Rape causes physical, psychological, and emotional harm while violating a person’s bodily autonomy. — 123rf
THE recent wave of violent crimes against girls – from acts of bullying and rape to murder – has awakened the country to the brutal reality that our schools are no longer safe.
While unrelated, the seemingly escalating school violence is alarming. More insidious was the report of a second alleged gang rape in a Malaysian school, especially after it was speculated that videos of the sexual assault were being sold over the dark web.
What compounded our anguish was the immediate response to these heinous crimes – the brushing aside of the serious nature of the first rape case and focusing on the perpetrators’ examination dilemma, rather than centering the conversation on the underlying causes of violence against women and girls.
Let’s be clear: Rape is a violent crime, not a moral or behavioural act. It causes physical, psychological, and emotional harm and violates a person’s bodily integrity and autonomy. Using the term “sexual misconduct” downplays the severity of the crime, making it sound like mere inappropriate behaviour or a violation of a code of conduct rather than a serious assault.
Befitting the crime, the perpetrators must be remanded, investigated, and tried. We should not downplay the gravity of violence against women and reinforce harmful cultural norms and systemic barriers that excuse perpetrators while silencing and shaming survivors.
The latest figures from the Department of Statistics shows that in 2023, physical sexual assault on a child recorded the highest number of cases among sexual offence cases with 1,389 cases. Rape cases increased by 12.1% to 1,899 cases. Overall, a total of 6,281 cases of sexual crime were reported in 2023, which means an average of 17.45 cases per day. In most cases, I dare say, it is violence targeted at young girls and women.
From January to March this year, AWAM recorded 88 cases of Gender-Based Violence reported across various media outlets, impacting 164 survivors and resulting in 11 deaths.
There is no one approach to deal with sexual crime. However, my colleagues and I totally disagree with caning or other violent forms of punishment.
Our society must not cure violence with more violence as suggested by some quarters. What we desperately need is better values starting with the youth; and educators including teachers, parents and education department authorities to see ending gender-based violence as their national responsibility.
Women’s organisations have long campaigned for a multisectoral approach towards ending gender-based violence. We need to view gender-based violence with an intersectional lens which integrate laws, policies, and procedures to ensure that a survivor-centered approach free from prejudicial stereotypes, is always applied.
Every survivor is entitled to justice and support, and systems must be designed to cater to a diverse range of needs and identities.
We fail our survivors because our society does not understand the kind of psychological, physical, emotional trauma that comes with the violence.
Trauma is repeated for survivors because she keeps reliving it through her parents, at school, through counsellors, the police, courts, and lawyers. One can never fully imagine what a survivor has to go through and yet we only recommend counselling as though it is an end-all solution. Counselling must be complemented with other changes.
We need supporting strategies to make sure that awareness intersect with systemic transformation of the institutions.
Adopt comprehensive sexuality education or call it an educational curriculum on respect, dignity and humane treatment of one another.
It is good that the Education Ministry is looking into this but we needed to begin the education not today, but yesterday.
Comprehensive sexuality education is meant to provide accurate, age-appropriate information about sexuality, sexual health, and empowering boys and girls to make informed decisions and learn how to build respectful, non-violent and healthy relationships.
Adopt a multisectoral approach to address gender-based violence, including sexual violence. This approach requires all key agencies (government and non-government) to prioritise addressing violence against women via joint planning, undertaking of key actions, and monitoring of progress to ensure that rights-based frameworks are put in place and implemented to address the discriminatory social norms that threaten the rights of women and girls.
The multisectoral approach can comprise the following:
• Incorporate existing teaching tools to teach school and university students respectful relationships and we can start with teaching four to five-year-old children what is good touch and bad touch, and how to report abuses.
• Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to work with other Ministries to begin gender equality education for all civil servants and set standards on equal treatment and human dignity;
• Home Ministry can extend gender equality education to the police, customs and immigration.
• Communications Ministry and Digital Ministry can publicise on all media that Sexual Violence is a Crime and will not be tolerated.
Adopting a safe and non-violent education environment is what all schools and universities must strive for. We have cases of students who are bullied and some killed, and others who commit suicide, and yet those who speak out against sexual harassment are penalised. It is the role and responsibility of society as a whole to begin building positive values for our future.
Why such massive effort for just one or two cases? It is not just a few cases as it is a whole society’s fight against gender-based violence and efforts to transform Malaysia into an equal and violence-free society.
We must ensure all corners are covered so that there is no repeat of any harassment, rape or assault cases. It will send the right message to our young and old that Malaysia rejects all forms of violence against women, young girls and boys.
Manohara Subramaniam is a council member and senior trainer with Martabat PJ, a community-based organisation that empowers women, youth, and marginalised groups through rights-based approaches. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.
