MP SPEAKS As we all know, the countdown to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 actually began months earlier, as women all over the world began preparing for a massive celebration, with women taking the centrestage.

This year, especially in Penang, the buzz has been on, with all the hardworking women and men in the Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC), Women’s Centre for Change (WCC) and Pusat Perkhidmatan Wanita (PPW) working around-the-clock to ensure that the message of respecting and protecting women not only lies on the shoulders of other women and men but on the shoulders of society as well.

It is two days away from one of the most important celebrations to appreciate and revere women and their contributions to society, and Malaysia once again weeps silently with the deaths of two women who were abused by their known perpetrators.

In Kelantan on Sunday, a young woman left a dying note about her assailant in Gua Musang, which led to his arrest 12 hours after. Investigations revealed she might have been raped as well. She succumbed to her death a few hours later. She knew her assailant.

In Alor Star, a cook who was riding her motorcycle to her workplace apparently fell off her bike when the car that her former husband was in grazed her. She put up a fight and eventually was forced into the car.

She had jumped out of the car to escape, but was run over by another car. She suffered a broken leg, head injuries and was in critical condition before succumbing, too, to death. She, too, knew her assailant.

This happened in a spate of just two days.

What did both of these women have in common?

They both knew their assailants and their assailants already had previous records of crime and in the case of the cook, the former husband had been charged in a previous case as ‘voluntarily causing grievous hurt’. It is now reclassified as murder.

The most under-reported violent crimes

What sort of a monitoring mechanism is the Home Ministry using with repeat offenders of violence against women still gaining access to their victims?

Sexual violence and rape are considered the most under-reported violent crimes, according to the American Medical Association (1995).

In a Parliamentary reply on June 16, 2014, rape cases in Malaysia average around 3,000 per year which means , on average eight rape cases per day and according to a report by the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), only 10 percent are reported. For one reported case, five go unreported.

Shocking, yet alarmingly real.

In 2013, a total of 2,111 men were reported to have raped girls under 18. of these, 461 of them were charged and only 14 convicted, which translates to 0.6 percent of the total number reported or 3.0 percent of the total number charged.

In a survey by the All Women’s Action Society (Awam) from 1994 to 1998, only 10 percent of reported cases ended in the successful conviction of the rapists.

A long way to go

The shocking confession by the 2012 Delhi rapist that the victim shouldn’t have fought back just goes to show what a long way we have to go to ensure that society is educated on the cardinal importance of respecting women and that no man or woman has the right to force himself or herself on another person.

Leslee Udwin, the film maker who made ‘India’s Daughter’ and who spoke to one of the rapists, expected to find deranged monsters and psychopaths. Unfortunately for her, the rapist was an ordinary, normal man.

They probably looked like the men that both Rosniza Fadzil and Yashmin Fauzi knew before they were assaulted and later died due to injuries by their ‘known’ assailants.

In a written reply to my parliamentary question last year, directed to the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry on whether the government has any intention to form a commission to handle violence against women, the answer was that while the government is serious in combating violence against women, there have been amendments to laws, a support mechanism as well as advocacy.

But for this moment, the government expresses its gratitude on the suggestion and that it will consider forming a commission to handle violence against women.

Needless to say I was disappointed.

Article 14 of the Indian Constitution confers absolute equal rights on women. And yet according to the National Crime Records Bureau 2013 Annual Report, 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in the previous year.

In 2013, the numbers had swelled to 33,707 with an average of 92 rapes per day - or an average of four every hour.

And one has to bear in mind that only one in 10 rapes are reported in India.

What this country has are laws (new and old), which still need amendments and tweaking. India being the best example with laws conferring equal rights to women versus the increase in the number of rape cases, despite such laws.

A society that respects women

What this country needs is a society that respects women and the government has a big role to play to ensure that society does just that.

This country needs a government that walks the talk as far as education, awareness and protecting women are concerned.

Clocking in at international conferences and not bringing home knowledge to implement and execute will only result in more women becoming victims of violence.

At this point, with the alarming number of rape, sexual and domestic violence occurring against women and girls in this country, it is high time this commission is formed with experienced, focused and dedicated members of the executive, civil society, academicians, counsellors, the police force, enforcement, legislators, political representations and NGOs to put what is on paper into action.

How many more deaths must Malaysia cry over before a commission is formed on violence against women.

KASTHURI PATTO is Member of Parliament for Batu Kawan and vice-chairperson of Penang Wanita DAP.