The All-Women’s Action Society (Awam) is horrified to read reports of a serial rapist who had repeatedly assaulted six secondary school students over a period of one year and used the mobile phone recordings of the rapes as threats.

This comes barely a few weeks after shocking reports of a gang rape of a 14-year old student in a school in Rawang by seven classmates. Evidently in both situations, the rapes and assaults occurred repeatedly over a length of time.

The increasing frequency and brutality of rapes and other sex crimes is alarming. According to statistics, since 2000 to last year, the numbers of reported rape cases have tripled to 3,626 in 2009, doubling within the last five years alone. And these do not even include other forms of sexual assault such as incest.

Using these figures, and accounting for the under-reporting (only 1 in 10 cases of rape are reported), it is possible to estimate that now each day in Malaysia approximately one person is raped every 15 minutes.

These two recent cases also expose a frightening pattern. Young girls and teenagers are the primary victims of sex crimes. In 2009, all of the reported rape victims were girls aged under 18. Of these, more than half were aged below 16. These show that the young are disproportionately vulnerable to rape and other forms of sexual assault.

The use of mobile phones and other ICTs are also frequently being abused as weapons for sexual exploitation as in the above-mentioned taxi driver case.

We also admire and commend the young survivors in both these cases for having the courage to step forward and speak out about their assaults despite the fear of retaliation. These acts of bravery directly resulted in the perpetrators being caught by the police. If only entire communities and institutions would also follow suit.

In the case of the Rawang gang rape, the entire community and school kept silent, allowing the violations, assaults and crimes to continue. As Rawang state assemblyperson Gan Pei Nei had said, no one had come forward to file a complaint. Worse still, there are serious allegations that the Rawang school had covered up cases of assault.

These claims must be investigated and if found guilty, the institution is complicit in the crimes and must be held accountable. As the sites of these rapes were within and surrounding the schools, the institutions must be held responsible for the safety and well-being of their students who are under their care. Otherwise, justice will yet again not be served.

The writer is president, All-Women's Action Society (Awam).