WAO: Women are commodities to men who pimp wives

Men who prostitute their wives do not regard them as human beings, says Women's Aid Organisation.

PETALING JAYA: The Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) believes that men who force their wives into prostitution do not regard women as human beings in the first place.

WAO executive director Sumitra Visvanathan said the men thought nothing of prostituting their wives because they had very little respect for women in general.

“In his mind, she has no right to make any choice and she has no integrity as a person so in the end, all she is to him is just a ‘thing’. He can prostitute a thing,” she told FMT.

Sumitra said most women who suffered domestic abuse also lost self-confidence, and as such the value they placed on themselves was significantly diminished.

“When a man assumes power and control, in the case of domestic abuse, the power and control is taken from the woman.”

She said abused women were often too afraid to report the men who abused them for two reasons.

“First is social reasons, because society has certain expectations of you as a wife; and second is because our laws do not help to protect them. We have no laws on criminal marital rape, for instance.”

Sumitra, who is also a lawyer, said although a recent law stipulates that a wife can report her husband if marital sex caused her physical harm, it was often difficult to prove.

“Imagine how difficult it is for a woman to come forward and prove that sex with her husband caused her physical harm. So, while it (abuse) is prevalent, it is actually very difficult to capture the real situation.”

Bernama had earlier reported that a man who pimped his wife to foreign men for RM50 each time they had sex with her, was arrested in a raid on a house in Bandar Amanjaya, Sungai Petani.

Kuala Muda police chief ACP Md Zukir Md Isa said the victim was forced into prostitution early last month when her husband quit his job.

The man has been remanded until Tuesday to facilitate the investigation into the case.-FMT