Call it jahiliah (ignorance) or a matter of ego, but concerns involving and affecting Malaysian women have never fully been understood by the men.

Ten years ago, parliamentarians scoffed at and chided then National Unity Minister Napsiah Omar who was negotiating the passage of the Domestic Violence Bill through the Dewan Rakyat.

After being pushed through almost at the stroke of midnight on the last day of a sitting in 1994, it was gazetted.

It may have been a step forward to protect abused women, but the watered-down legislation had several loopholes. Among others, it did not provide a remedy for marital rape.

That issue has just been revived, but this time by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) which has advocated the criminalisation of marital rape.

Islamic 'scholars' have wasted no time in throwing brickbats at Suhakam for taking up an issue that they say has not bearing on Muslim women.

One such individual is Abdul Hamid Othman, the religious advisor to the prime minister. He claimed that Islamic family law gives Muslims wives an appropriate remedy - they can apply to the Syariah Court for a divorce under a procedure called fasakh .

Bigoted views

But implementation of fasakh itself comes with problems, leading to delays in court cases. In Islam, the men unfortunately have an upper hand via the repulsive practice of declaring their wives nusyus (disobedient) when they are unhappy with something the wife has done.

Thus, if a women refuses to 'oblige' her husband's demand for sex even if she has a valid reason, all her spouse has to do is to declare her nusyus and he will have a perfect excuse to file for divorce and proceed to take another wife.

Equally disheartening is that some non-Muslim males hold bigoted views on human rights and that this has paralysed their ability to comprehend the necessity of recognising marital rape as a crime.

The most absurd of reasons have been cited, including that women have no right to refuse sex after marriage and that the very foundation of a marriage rests on a wife's compliance with her husband's needs.

As incredulous as it sounds, it stands true that Malaysians have and are showing apathy towards this very important issue, which is about violence by a husband against his wife.

There can be no justification for a husband to force himself on his wife. The conjugal relationship is no licence for a husband to forcefully obtain sex.

Women still inferior

The issue of marital rape has never been discussed openly simply because the powers-that-be have refused to acknowledge the obvious - that when the husband does not respect his wife's refusal to have sex, the act of violating her rights is called rape and rape is an act of violence.

Until and unless women's rights are respected and accorded due justice, women will be deemed remain inferior, irrespective of government propaganda that purportedly supports the advancement of women.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's move to set up and chair a cabinet committee on gender equality smacks of hypocrisy. He said the committee's aim is to ensure successful implementation of programmes to ensure gender equality and tackle gender-related issues.

Equally hypocritical is the stand taken by Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil that the cabinet committee is a significant achievement in ensuring gender issues are given appropriate attention.

If Pak Lah is genuine in his concern for gender equality, he should waste no time in deliberating the need to address marital rape as a crime under the Penal Code, as recently recommended by Suhakam in its proposals to the parliamentary select committee on crime.

Buying time to discuss this issue is the government's classic way of saying it will not exert its political will to help wives seek redress for the heinous act of marital rape.

End the rhetoric

If the government fails to recognise marital rape as a crime, then the time has come for leaders to end their rhetoric on gender equality and building a safer society for women.

Had the government been honest and serious in dismantling gender-related barriers, it would not have wasted 10 years over rectifying the obvious flaw in the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) in relation to marital rape.

A year after the government gazetted the DVA, it went on to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw).

There is no excuse for Malaysian policy makers to forget that Article 2 of Cedaw states that marital rape as a violence act contravening the rights of women.

The government is still dilly-dallying over its stand on marital rape, clearly reflecting that leaders continue to hold a third-class and bigoted mentality.

The government in its own way still views women as an inferior lot. Otherwise, how does it explain its absence of commitment towards providing access to justice for marital rape, irrespective of the victim's creed and race?

JJ RAY started her career with a mainstream publication. A non-conformist, she soon saw the barriers that went up whenever, through her writing, she tried to make the world a home for one and all.