COMMENT | When a teacher touches a student inappropriately, we would identify that immediately as sexual harassment, as we should.

If the scenario had been the sexual harassment of a female student by a male teacher, that would have been easy to condemn, again, as we should.

But today I am here to call out a more insidious form of sexual harassment, committed by female teachers towards female students in the name of religion.

This form of sexual harassment is rarely called out, because it is disguised as "spot checks", and committed by female teachers, often the ustazahs (female Islamic teachers) towards female Muslim students.

I went to secondary school at a national public school in Shah Alam. I was there throughout my secondary school years, with the first two years of lower secondary school being in the afternoon school session. This means the zuhur and asar prayers were performed at school.

When it was time for prayers, all Muslim students are required to be at the surau (prayer hall) to pray in congregation. The time allocated for this is usually about 20 to 25 minutes, while those who are allowed to skip this proceed to a specified classroom where they can be monitored and not aimlessly roam around the school.

Female Muslim students who are excused from praying are also required to go the surau, only they stay outside since there's not supposed a majority of them being excused anyway.

And the only way you may be excused from the congregational prayer is when you are on your period. But some teachers take this enforcement too far by insisting on proof of menstruation for the girls to be excused from praying....