news feature

If rape is considered a tough bull to tackle (see All rise against rape getting the law in order ), the rape of a minor would fall where angels fear to tread.

This is the story of Jenny. Jenny was a precocious five-year-old who attended a kindergarten in the Klang Valley. Like any other boisterous child, she loved to ride her tricycle around the neighbourhood and play 'pretend' with her dolls.

And like any other five-year-old, the only way she knew to cry out for help was to speak out the only way she knew how, with her impossibly limited vocabulary.

"Teacher, my daddy makes me take off my panties and sit on his face," she told her teacher one day after class was over and the rest of her peers had left.

Surely it wasn't too much to expect the teacher to immediately comfort and shelter the battered little girl who came to the only person she thought could help her.

But in the sex-saturated culture which we live in today, many are only too prone to relate sexual abuse with sex alone, and in the Asian culture, the immediate word association with sex is 'dirty'.

It is no wonder then that teacher's immediate reaction was to blurt "Get away from me, Jenny! Don't say all these dirty things!"

What was Jenny supposed to say? "My daddy does things to me which no five-year-old should ever be made to go through, let alone have to speak about"? That "he has violated my trust in a gross and despicable manner when he should be the protector, not the predator"?

She will not, because she cannot. But the teacher, and many others like her who have been strategically entrusted to be that final bulwark and refuge, can.

But oftentimes, they will not.

PS the Children

Except for the child's name which has been changed, everything about this account is true. Thank God the teacher finally had the sense to read between Jenny's lines and ultimately made that call to the All Women's Action Society (Awam).

"We told the teacher that the child knows only those words to describe the abuse. It was Jenny's call for help, and now it was the teacher's turn to respond to that call," said Awam vice-president Manohary Subramaniam in a recent interview with malaysiakini .

"The teacher finally took Jenny to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctor was the one who lodged the police report against the father," she added.

"We are working with 'PS the Children' (an organisation which works with sexually abused kids) to conduct workshops throughout Malaysia for both parents and teachers. We want to educate them about child sexual abuse and the ways to identify the signs of abuse.

"If, for example, Devi refuses to hug a particular uncle and actually tells her parents that she hates him, flashing lights should come on in the parents' heads," said Mano.

Admittedly this 're-education' process for parents and teachers is moving at snails' pace. Many even have preconceived notions that there will be a stigma attached to them just for attending the workshops.

Police ignorance

This lackadaisical mindset is deeply-seated not only amongst the teachers and parents, but even more outrageously evident in the police.

"I've had police telling me that it's just about sex and that you can't blame the father because he has uncontrollable sexual urges," said Mano.

According to Mano, the most outrageous retort which they have ever received from the police was, "The six-year-old child was running naked from the shower to her room. You can't blame the father for raping her after that."

The desperate state of affairs does not end there but is most manifest in 'fortress' law.

The law states succinctly that children cannot be easily believed.

That they are prone to imaginations and flights of fancy which may lead them to tell stories without any element of truth.

According to a study by 'PS the Children', a child has had to relate his/her ordeal to at least seven people before he/she is believed.

If the child is actually taken for a check-up and the physical torment can be medically proven, he/she will then have to undergo the psychological torture of reliving her agony to countless authorities before anything is finally done.

And this child would be in a relatively favourable position.

Adult witness required

For the child who has been sexually molested but is without medical evidence of rape, i.e. penetration of the vagina, she might as well be beating against the wind.

According to Section 133A of the Evidence Act 1950, the unsworn statement of a child witness must be corroborated. If a six-year-old should come to court claiming to have been sexually molested or abused, and is able to relate his or her ordeal in disturbing detail, the father/uncle/perpetrator cannot be convicted unless an adult is able to substantiate the child's claim.

Which in effect means that the offence must have been witnessed by another adult.

Which, of course, rarely happens. Sexual predators may claim to have "uncontrolled urges", but somehow, those urges never are quite so uncontrolled when in full view of others.

"We want this law to be amended. Testimonies of young children should be allowed as evidence without being corroborated.

"The abuser must never be allowed to benefit from impunity of the law and should always be punished," said Mano.

Axis of evil

Child sexual abuse is not about sex.

It is about violence.

And predatory violence by a parent/relative/authoritative figure sits in the abyss.

Of late, we use terms such as "axis of evil" indiscriminately until the true depth of such an accusation may sometimes lose its actual sting.

But for a perpetrator of child sexual abuse, a lesser term would not do him justice.

And for the law to fulfill its role as that elemental instrument of justice, it must recognise, address and punish the abuser for that which he really is.

It would do us some good to learn from the children call the abuse as it is. No justification warrants sympathy for an act which has been committed against our children.

Let's say that again our children.

And again these are our children.