The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) has urged the government to close the gaps in domestic laws to eliminate violence against women and girls for good, and to achieve gender equality in the country.

"The time has come to close the gaps in Malaysia. The gaps in laws and policies that allow women and girls to fall through the cracks, and to suffer from violence and discrimination without access to justice.

"Even after years of civil society expending critical resources in educating and engaging with policymakers, words have not materialised into concrete actions, and women and girls are still regularly subjected to violence and discrimination, with limited recourse in the law," the coalition said in a statement today.

The statement was issued in conjunction with Hari Wanita 2016, JAG said.

It is time, it said, for all MPs to demonstrate their commitment to gender equality by supporting the law reform initiatives JAG has consistently lobbied for over the past decade.

Pushing 10 years for reforms to rape law

Though JAG has been pushing for reforms to the law on rape to strengthen protections for survivors of rape for more than 10 years, there are still cases where perpetrators go free.

"We have seen a 60-year-old man acquitted of raping a 15-year-old girl on the basis that there was no penile penetration, but only penetration with his finger.

"We have seen perpetrators go free because the testimony of the victim could not be corroborated by a third party, or because that third party was a child, or worse still, because the perpetrator married the victim," it said.

JAG has also been lobbying for reforms to the Islamic Family Law Act (Federal Territory) 1984 and the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, it said.

In the years since the NGO began lobbying for those reforms, it said, it has seen women facing extreme financial hardships after their husbands successfully cut off access to assets during divorce proceedings or escape obligations to pay maintenance.

"We have (also) seen survivors of domestic violence lose custody of their children when their husbands convert their own religion and unilaterally convert the religion of the children.

"We have seen girls as young as 12 and 13 years contracted into marriages where their rapists have now become their husbands," the group lamented.

JAG also said that since it started lobbying for comprehensive gender equality legislation to integrate Malaysia's commitments under the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw), it has seen the continued rampant discrimination against women.

This manifested in many overt forms, it said, such as the termination of women from employment upon getting pregnant, or the inability of Malaysian women married to foreigners to pass on their citizenship to their children.

The discrimination has also revealed itself in more insidious forms, such as the low rate of participation of women in decision-making positions, JAG said.

"JAG has been unwavering in its commitment to bringing about comprehensive changes to the laws in Malaysia, with the goal of eliminating violence against women and realising gender equality.

"We will continue to critically engage with the government to do so, and hope that on Hari Wanita 2016, the tipping point of this engagement - the holistic evaluation and amendments by MPs of all existing laws and policies that are harmful to women - is imminent," it said.