On Tuesday, the Kuala Terengganu High Court acquitted and discharged former National Service Training Programme coach Zuki Mohd from a charge of raping an NS trainee in 2004.

In making the decision, the court also set aside the 12-year-jail and three strokes of the rotan sentence handed to him by the Sessions Court here on Dec 19, 2005.The court said the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against the appellant.

I am not questioning the judgement of the High Court in acquitting and discharging Zuki Mohd but I would like to speak to him as one human being to another.

I am a rape survivor, and it filled me with great sorrow when reading the reasons behind the court’s decision. It was implied that it should be easy for a rape survivor to make a police report and that she should be fighting the rapist tooth-and-nail to protect herself from mental and physical violation.

Is any person able to relate to strangers in uniform, in detail, the forced sexual relationships they had? I am sure anyone would be very uncomfortable. Now try to imagine the gamut of emotions that a rape survivor feels when she contemplates making a police report knowing that society will always blame her and never the perpetrator.

Even with a pseudonym here, I know that I’d be consumed with feelings of shame and guilt and a whole plethora of emotions that could last for weeks just because I write about my own rape experience that happened 30 years ago.

I was just a year older than the NS trainee was when I was raped and I never had the courage to make a police report. I salute the lady for summoning enough courage to confront not just the perpetrator but the whole system including societal prejudices against women.

Now, because of the high court’s remarks, it is very devastating for other women in her shoes to come forward and make police reports against rapists.

You would never find a bruise on me after the violation of my self because having to choose between being dead or being raped, I chose life. The people who love me supported my decision but now the this high court’s flimsy reasons have reared my feelings of guilt for being alive.

I may have given the perpetrator the justification to continue his vile action on other women by allowing him to escape from his responsibility and this is something I have to live with for the rest of my life.

However, I cannot allow any party from discouraging other rape survivors from coming forward even if theirs is a ‘cold case’.

What does it take for all of you out there, judges or not, to walk in our shoes? Can you live with the consequences of your decision?