The Penan community is mystified with the slow reaction by the authorities, especially the police, in taking action against the sexual abuse, including rape of the Penan girl, as identified by a national task force.

The Penan elders fear that the government will conveniently let the matter to rest while the Penan girls continue to face violations regularly.

The report by the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development, was compiled by a high-level task force, comprising government officials, a police representative and women's groups and released on Sept 8, almost eight months after the fact-finding mission was undertaken in Penan villages in Baram.

NONE The report confirmed that sexual harassment and exploitation by timber camp workers had indeed taken place and indentified several cases in the report.

Since the release of the report, much has been said by the government to support the Penan victims and their family members but more significantly the police have not made any arrests so far.

In a recent Malaysiakini visit to Ulu Baram, many Penan leaders expressed disappointment with the police's lack of teeth in catching the culprits.

"We know the timber companies are powerful but we had expected the police to take note of what was mentioned in the report and start investigating the matter," said village head ‘PJ' whose real identity is protected for fear of reprisal as at least one victim identified in the ministry's report had come from his village.

Other Penan village heads also confirmed that some of the villages had been visited by the "thugs from the logging companies to ask us to keep the matter quiet".

At least in one village, a victim's family was harassed by the police for going public about the rape.

Village head threatened by culprit

PJ said he was angry with the authorities for not taking the sexual attacks on the Penan girls seriously.

"Just recently, in the beginning of November, one of the culprits named in the report had come to my village to talk to the victim. He also warned me for highlighting this issue.

"He said that he was a gangster and would finish me off if I continue raising the rape issue. How can I be quiet? I have a victim in my village. She has a child from the man," he said.

NONE PJ said that he was worried for his safety and felt that the police should take action to stop the culprit from visiting the village at his will.

He is also reluctant to lodge a police report on the threats made to his life, fearing that he will be punished for continuing to play up the sexual issue.

The village has a direct access to logging companies, whose employees regularly visit the girls when the elders are away to their farms or the jungle.

There have also been reports of girls being abducted and sexually abused along the logging tracks by the employees of the logging companies.

"Our children are going to schools using these logging tracks too. We are worried of their security.

"When we ask the government to provide transportation for our children, the requests are forwarded to the logging companies but we don't trust these drivers of the logging companies. They are the real danger to our children," added PJ.

The national task force had reported cases where school children had been raped and sexually abused while on the way to their school.

But it is not only school children that have fallen prey to the sexual predators from the logging companies.

Induced by marriage

Penan girls have also been "picked up" from their villagers by these logging company employees and subsequently subjected to sexual abuses, including rape.

azlan Some Penan village heads told Malaysiakini that the girls were offered work at the logging camps to cook and clean up the place and once they were in the camp, they were sexually abused.

There are also Penan girls who have been induced by a promise of marriage and then abandoned after they were pregnant. In almost all cases, the culprits are married.

Malaysiakini met two women from the same family - an aunt and her niece - who had been duped by unscrupulous logging company employees with a promise of marriage - 30 years apart.

The aunt, PT, aged 51, met the logging employee named BN in 1989 when the loggers encamped near her village.

"He asked me to marry him and live with him in the camp. He told me he was a bachelor and wanted to marry me. I believed him and stayed with him.

"I got pregnant three months later, during which time he told me that he had to go back to his village. He never came back," said PT.

She said she suffered pain and humiliation when she went back to her village but fortunately she found an understanding fellow Penan from her village who married her. They have three children.

"I am fine now but I hope the Penan girls will not fall for these lying men from the logging companies," she said. However her word of advice was not to be heeded by her own niece, BY.

NONE Just like what had happened to her aunty, BY too was wooed and swept off her feet by a man from Miri working for the logging company. The man even got the village head to agree to the marriage.

Following a simple marriage ceremony in which only her family members had attended, BY followed her husband to the camp.

Her relationship with her husband lasted for two years, by which time she had become pregnant. Subsequently her husband just left her to return to his first wife, also a Penan woman.

Left to fend the child - a baby boy - on her own and having to face her family and her villagers, BY became depressed and angry with herself.

She is still angry over the manner in which she had been duped but said that she had no interest in confronting the man.

"We are very timid by nature. We are all angry with what has happened, not just to BY but also to PT and other Penan girls, but we have decided to just move on from the episode. We do not see this government doing anything about the matter," said her village head who was also present during the interview.

BY is also remarried to another Penan and they have a daughter but the scar she had received from her experience is still fresh.

"It is still hurts to think how easily we can be cheated... and be made use of," she said.

"My advice to the other Penan girls is this. There are many logging workers around our villages now. Be careful of these men. Look at what has happened to me and learn the lesson," she said.

A marriage from hell

On a positive note both the aunty and niece are fortunate to have understanding spouses now and are now able to carry on with their lives.

The same cannot be said for RR, a young girl who has been cheated into marriage by a logging company employee and is now being abused regularly by her ‘husband'.

NONE Her woeful condition was narrated to Malaysiakini by her elderly father who is desperate to help his only child.

The father, RJ, said that his daughter was approached by a man from logging company for her hand in marriage about a year ago. He said his daughter was taken in by the man's charms and agreed to marry him despite her family's apprehensions.

As in all the other cases, theirs was not an elaborate wedding ceremony. It was arranged by the man and attended by only RJ and his family.

"After the wedding, he became a different man. He started beating my daughter and even threatened me when I asked him about it," asked RJ.

He added that his daughter can't take the abuse and wants to leave the man.

"But he warned her that if she left him, she will be dead in three days. He has also warned her that he will harm me and my wife," said an emotional RJ.

As a result of which, RR is now "a prisoner" of her husband in the logging camp.

NONE "I don't know who to turn to for help. I don't know if the police can help me or if they will support the camp people," he said.

After a first hand account of their traumatic accounts, his instinct that the police will not help him appears frighteningly probable.

The Sarawak government has recently labelled the rape of the Penan girls by loggers as "unsubstantiated reports".

"To me, all these reports are not true. They did not happen... If (they) are true, there should be evidence," said Sarawak Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister's Department Daud Abdul Rahman.

Similarly the Sarawak police too have announced that there was no evidence of sexual abuse of schoolgirls.

VIDEO l 3 mins

Names of all the persons quoted in the story are not given in full in order to protect them from any potential reprisals from any parties.

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[Photos by Maran Perianen]