Leave women’s issues alone

It seems that for now Malaysians do not have much of an option when Rosmah does the talking.

COMMENT

Some people just refuse to learn from their mistakes, as is the case with self-proclaimed ‘first lady’ of Malaysia, Rosmah Mansor, who by virtue of being prime minister Najib Tun Razak’s wife seems to have taken the ‘title’ too seriously.

So taken in is Rosmah as the premier’s wife that there is little else she wants to do except be the ‘unofficial’ spokesperson for her husband.

But alas each time Rosmah opens her mouth, little good comes out of all that she says. All that is said is at best a case of ‘shoe shine’ at work.

Take for example Rosmah’s remarks made during the recently held Women’s Summit that Malaysian women are already emancipated and as such there is no need for them to take to the streets to fight for their rights.

Her words ran parallel to the sentiments of husband Najib who had not too long ago earned the wrath of the women’s groups in the country when he dismissed and ridiculed the importance of a women’s movement in Malaysia.

Clearly, Rosmah is at loss over the issue of women empowerment and the rights of women.

Had Najib’s wife been a little intelligent and ‘enlightened’, she would have shuddered at the thought of having assumed that all women back home are emancipated.

It is an irony that while Rosmah waxes lyrical about her pet project Permata, the early childhood education programme, she as the patron of the Malaysian AIDS Foundation has no love and affection for children living with HIV/AIDS housed at shelters supervised by the Malaysian AIDS Council’s partner organisations.

For one, Rosmah makes no attempt to address the children at these shelters each time she makes a pit-stop there. It is said that she races from one corner of these shelters to the other before rushing off.

This is in contradiction to the visit made to one of these shelters by the Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway who was in town recently to participate in a three-day conference.

Mette-Marit is a special representative for UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), a position she was appointed to in 2006 and was in Kuala Lumpur as a speaker at the Women Deliver 2013 conference held last month.

Prior to visiting the shelter, Mette-Marit left strict instructions that she wanted no VIP treatment and simply wanted to mingle with the children and women there, including enjoying her refreshments with them in a very casual manner.

However, for the likes of Rosmah, reaching out to those at the grassroots is perhaps a case of asking for too much.

This then explains her ignorance over the problems faced by women and why resorting to demonstrations and protests seem to be the only way to get the government to listen.

Leave women’s issues alone

When speaking at a forum at the Global Summit of Women 2013, Rosmah not only erred but lied to the audience there by claiming that Malaysia was lucky to have government leaders who were concerned with issues pertaining to women and children.

Looks like conviction has never been a foothold for Rosmah as seen from the blundering comments she keeps making.

Has Rosmah forgotten or was it convenience at work when she touted that the country has concerned ‘government leaders’?

And it is these ‘concerned government leaders’ who are the least concerned when a girl is raped or when a women is battered by her husband or when a female employee commits suicide because she is unable to deal with the sexual harassment coming from her employer.

Rosmah is trying to impress the global audience by saying that ‘all’s well back home for the Malaysian women’ when reality however tells otherwise.

If all was indeed fine at the home front, justice would never have eluded women who cried rape; in this case the sexual harassment and rape faced by Sarawak’s Penan girls and women has yet to come to an end, despite the fact that the women had turned to Rosmah for help.

When a girl child is raped and forced to marry her perpetrator, is that ‘emancipation’ at work, as far as Rosmah is concerned?

When a father continues to rape his daughter and the terrified mother keeps her mouth shut, is that a show of emancipation?

By the way, did it bother Rosmah to know that the first group of syariah offenders which included 22 women out of the 39 received six lashings of the rotan in closed quarters of the Kluang prison in Johor.

Is the ‘first lady’ worried that the Johor Islamic Affairs Department (JAIJ) is debating for canning to be carried out in public or in mosques? If it happens, would Rosmah still croon that emancipation of Malaysian women is at an all-time high?

Flippant attitude

Rapes, molest and sexual harassment are the major threats facing women and Malaysian women are no exception. Justice, however, has always been elusive or painfully slow in coming.

Does such situation not warrant a protest to the authorities to not view violence against women, be it domestic or otherwise lightly?

It is apparent that Rosmah has no knowledge of the myriad of issues affecting women in this country, hence her flippant attitude; best then that Rosmah sticks to the cause close to her heart, her Permata project of which she is the patron.

From tsunami to the HIV/AIDS scenario, Rosmah always got her facts wrong. In November last year, she waded into controversy when she defended Malaysia’s stand to support an ouster clause based on “public morality” at the then endorsed Asean Human Rights Declaration.

Not only that, Rosmah also made the factual mistake of blaming the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender) community for spreading the HIV virus.

It seems that for now Malaysians do not have much of an option when Rosmah does the talking – they can either dismiss all that she is saying and which is the wise thing to do, or have a good laugh at the load of crap she keeps uttering.

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance writer and a FMT columnist.