The government should focus more on preventive rather than punitive measures in dealing with incest, said two womens organisations today.

According to the Womens Crisis Centre (WCC) and Womens Aid Organisation (WAO) there should be greater focus on creating a support system for the victims as well as alternative forms of sentencing such as mandatory counselling for the perpetrators.

Counselling is very necessary in this country but so far, we have not heard about mandatory counselling for those who commit these serious crimes, WCC executive director Loh Cheng Kooi told malaysiakini .

She said mandatory sentencing of incest perpetrators, as suggested by the government, could be counter productive as family members could be discouraged from reporting the crime due to the dependency relationship that exists between the culprit and the victim.

The father may tell the child that if she tells anyone, he will be put in jail for 20 years.

Similarly, a lot of pressure will be put on the mothers due to their economic dependence on their husbands if they make a report, said Loh.

Last Wednesday, de facto Law Minister Dr Rais Yatim said the government was considering changing the law to make it mandatory for the court to mete out the maximum sentence of 20 years.

Loh said while womens organisations acknowledge the need for heavier penalties, there should be leeway for judges to sentence on serious crimes such as rape and incest.

We are happy with the current range of six to 20 years and we think the penalties are sufficient, she added.

The focus, stressed Loh, on punishing perpetrators of incest was insufficient in dealing with the problem as only 20 percent of the cases are reported and of these, only some 10 percent are brought to court.

Islamic laws

Meanwhile, WAO said the governments emphasis on punishment was reactive to the number of reports in the press about such cases.

However, the organisation said greater priority should be given to helping the victims deal with their trauma.

According to its communications officer Jaclyn Kee, one such initiative supported by womens organisations is Protect and Save Children — an independent project which helps train people on how to deal with abused children.

Kee also said mandatory sentencing might not work to the advantage of the victims as judges will have to be extremely careful because of the severity of the penalty.

Among the concerns of womens organisations is the judicial process which places strong emphasis on clinical evidence concerning incest and rape cases. This is difficult to establish if the crime is reported much later after it occurred.

We are now concerned with bringing about a change to the rape laws to widen its definition and the ambit of the law, said Kee.

The Penal Code was amended last year to include Section 376A to differentiate between rape and incest. The minimum sentence for those found guilty of perpetrating incest was raised to six years from the previous five.

However, this is yet to take effect.

In a related development, PAS said only Islamic laws can effectively counter sex crimes such as incest from taking place.

Its Wanita chief Fatimah Ibrahim said the government must implement criminal laws based on Islamic principles in order to counter these crimes effectively.

We stress again that only Islamic laws can counter social crises especially against crimes which involve violations against the basis of Islam, she said in a press statement.