ANTIDOTE Sarawak newspapers have highlighted a police report made by an unnamed Penan woman denying she had been raped as previously reported.

The woman, described as a mother of two from Long Item, made the statement at the Long Lama police station in rural Sarawak on Sept 28.

Malaysiakini has learnt the same woman, 22, had lodged a report at the Bukit Aman police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur last year, saying she had been raped by ‘Johnny’ (not his real name), a timber-camp worker in Sarawak.

A high-level national task force set up by the cabinet last year confirmed that a Long Item woman, given the pseudonym ‘Bibi’, had been raped at least twice by ‘Johnny’, an employee of Interhill, a wealthy logging company operating in Baram.

NONE Bibi was one of eight cases of sexual abuse and rape of Penan girls as young as 10 that were documented by the task force last November. Led by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, the task force identified the crimes during only one week of investigations.

The task force spent a day, last Nov 5, interviewing Bibi and another victim ‘Cindy’, who had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to report rape by loggers.

The task force then traveled for six days, Nov 10-15, on a limited fact-finding mission to Baram, and documented widespread instances of rape and sexual abuse of Penan girls by loggers.

The Borneo Post and mainstream Chinese newspapers, however, trumpeted new allegations that Bibi said had been “conned” into going to Kuala Lumpur for “over three months”.

According to the Borneo Post story, she had agreed to go to Kuala Lumpur with an unidentified Penan man because he “wanted to bring her one-year-old child to Kuala Lumpur for treatment”. The newspaper did not specify the illness.

The report quoted her as saying she had been paid RM100 over the three months she spent in Kuala Lumpur.

penan baram women sexual abuse by loggers 220908 01 The front-page story did not question the incredible idea that any woman could somehow have been “conned” to take her two small children to a distant city for months on end, for RM100.

It is well known that Penan people from rural communities are traditionally shy, reserved, and do not readily leave their close-knit communities. Most Penan perceive the environment of cities such as Kuala Lumpur as terrifying and dangerous, much as urban Malaysians picture the equatorial rainforest, home to Sarawak’s 16,000 Penan.

Ministerial report documented rape

Star newspaper had published reports about the rape of Bibi and Cindy on Oct 6 last year. The two then lodged reports at Bukit Aman that they had been raped by logging camp workers.

A four-member panel led by Dr Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur, director-general of the Women’s Development Department and overall head of the task force, documented clearly that loggers had raped both women. The interview was conducted at the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) headquarters in Selangor.

The task force followed the pseudonyms given in the Star report: Bibi, a 21-year-old woman from Long Item, and Cindy, a 17-year-old girl from Long Kawi. Both had delivered babies as a consequence of their alleged rape.

NONE The panel stated: Bibi, an uneducated 21-year-old woman from Long Item, says she was raped twice by the same man, causing her to give birth.

The first episode occurred in 2005, when the rapist, known to her as Johnny (not his real name), entered her house at night and raped Bibi in her own room. She knew Johnny as a logging employee from the Interhill Camp near her village…as a result she gave birth to a daughter who is now two years old.

The task force report continued: The second time was in 2007, when Johnny again broke into her home when she was alone. Bibi became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter in February 2008…She did not tell her family who had raped her, because she was afraid…Johnny had delivered food on several occcasions to Bibi and her family. Johnny had also claimed Bibi as his wife but Bibi did not want to accept him because Johnny already had two wives, one of whom was also Penan.

Malaysiakini understands that Bibi is the woman who has now made a new police report. The Borneo Post stated confidently on Sept 28 that her “husband” had accompanied her to Long Lama to make the police report. None of the local news reporters asked for verification, such as a marriage certificate - despite the forced sex and alleged bigamy detailed by the ministerial task force report.

Johnny appears to be the same man who claims to be Bibi’s husband. The same man was interviewed by the Borneo Post last October, following the Star report of rape by loggers.

At the time, the Borneo Post had quoted the woman’s “husband” as denying that she had been raped, claiming instead that they were married, and that his “wife” was seeking treatment for their youngest child – a claim repeated in the latest round of local news stories.

The Borneo Post and other mainstream Sarawak newspapers are owned by logging conglomerates and are closely entwined with the ruling political elite.

Scepticism over police report

In a Malaysian Mirror video posting headlined ‘Meera: shame on you Jabu’ on Sept 16, WAO president Meera Samanther rebutted Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu’s allegations that “negative NGOs” had had a hand in the task force report findings.

meera samanther 01 “The two women came to our shelter…the decision was left to them: there’s a policy of self-determination. No one coerced, no-one forced them to make any reports, they did it out of their own volition. There was no pressure from anyone,” Meera insisted.

A source closely involved in the investigations, who has pressed for justice for the Penan, responded to the latest Borneo Post report with scepticism.

“After the Star report came out, Cindy and Bibi were afraid for the safety of their small children, and for their own safety,” the source told Malaysiakini .

“They were worried they would be victimised by the loggers, to stop them from reporting these inhuman crimes.

“The two young Penan women went to Kuala Lumpur because they felt they were in danger. They and their children were cared for, and protected, in a safe house. The suggestion that Bibi was bribed RM100 to go to Kuala Lumpur, or was conned, is laughable.

“Why did this new police report appear a year after her initial Bukit Aman report? Could it be she is still afraid of this Johnny, as she told the task force?

“Could it be this latest publicity is yet another smokescreen, designed to divert Malaysians’ attention from the fact that the police have not brought the rapists to justice? The rapists are still free - to rape again.

“Was this Penan woman intimidated into denying she was raped?”

KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia . His ‘The Antidote’ column, which appears in Malaysiakini every Wednesday, is an attempt to allow the voices of marginalised people to be heard all over Malaysia.