When polygamy is practised without a clear conscience, the society, especially children, can become the victims of neglect. When the pronouncement of divorce is made so easy, the society would take advantage of this and abandon their wives in a trifling manner.

When a man abandons his wife and takes on another, he may often neglect his children. The same may happen to a woman. When her husband abandons her, she would seek another husband and take with her the children from the former marriage.

The children, especially daughters, would then be staying with their stepfathers. When this happens, would these children be safe in the hands of their stepfathers?

It is just fetid and disgusting to keep on reading in the dailies about rapes involving fathers and their stepdaughters so rampant in our society. What does this insinuate in this so-called civilised society of ours?

One episode in our society that keeps on distressing our mind is the raping of innocent and helpless girls by their stepfathers. The depiction of an animalistic instinct of man of this genus has been exposed countless times in our society.

Those reported incidents, I assume, are only the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, many incidents of this sort may have gone unreported because of some vested interest on the part of mothers or parents.

To overcome this upsetting problem, the Syariah courts especially is duty-bound to play a role in protecting young children from being raped or molested by stepfathers. Religion and the Syariah are meant to protect the people. They are like sunshades for the society to live calm and happy.

However, the Malaysian Syariah courts have not been stringent enough to observe the fact that girls of age should not be staying with their stepfathers who, for one reason or another, can unpredictably become beasts in disguise.

Islamic laws on custody have their sum and substance. The Islamic law gives the right of custody during the early years of the child to the mother if she is not remarried. The right of hadhanah (custody) of a woman is lost by her marriage with a person not related to the child within the prohibited degrees.

If the child is still of an age that qualifies the mother to bestow on her the care, love, and affection that the child may need (during the connubial relationship as well as after its dissolution), the father has the right to see the child at such times and such periods as the court considers reasonable.

When a child reaches the age of seven, it becomes the right and duty of the natural father to receive the child from her mother and raise her.

In other words, after the termination of the right of the hadhanah to the child, which is upon the child attaining the age of seven years in the case of a female, the custody devolves upon the natural father. The Syariah courts should ensure that this be discretionarily enforced in our society.

And the proviso in law that a child aged between nine to 12 can be given the right to choose with whom to stay (father or mother) with has to be cautiously deliberated upon. It is often instinctive for a child to have more affection for her mother than her father.

This without the child herself realising the consequences that might befall her in the later part of her life, especially when the mother is married to a non-muhrim (non-relative) of the child.

If the father unreasonably chooses to ignore his own sibling, then he is not a good Muslim - or for that matter, a good citizen in a god-believing society. The father has to be responsible towards his own offspring and this sense of responsibility has to be effected upon him by an Islamic counsellor or the Islamic judge when he decides to accept custody of the child.

It is also important to note here that Islamic laws pertaining to custody have been time-tested throughout the years people have lived with the religion. Islam has always put the interest of the child above others when it deals with custody.

What now remains to be done is the sensible and judicious execution of the law by the Syariah courts to safeguard the well-being of these innocent children.

Society's sympathy is for these innocent girls who were alleged to have been raped by their stepfathers and also for the many others who have gone through the same ordeal, anguish and agony but dare not come to the front to divulge it.

Unfortunately, children are the ones who become the ultimate losers when a society takes family life as something very trivial.