Why the U-turn on sex offenders’ registry?

DAP’s Steven Sim questions the government’s sudden U-turn on their position regarding a sex offenders’ registry

KUALA LUMPUR: The government’s reversal of stance regarding the implementation of a sex offenders’ registry is a tragedy, said DAP’s Steven Sim today.

Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar earlier said that a sex offenders’ registry is unnecessary.

This drew ire from the Bukit Mertajam Member of Parliament as he slammed both the IGP and the government in a statement, calling again for the need of such a registry.

He reminded the IGP of his predecessor Musa Hassan’s actions in 2010, when the Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) and the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development met to devise the mechanism behind an Act that would, besides the registry, also include monitoring methods.

This came after the murder of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin in 2007, when the eight-year-old’s body was discovered stuffed in a sports bag after being raped and killed, prompting Musa and the Ministry to propose the creation of a Sexual Offenders Registration Act.

“Eight years have now passed, and after so much effort from PDRM, the government, and various NGOs and advocacy groups, the current IGP is now telling us that there is actually no need for such a mechanism,” lamented Sim.

“The U-turn is a tragedy especially for women and girls already exposed to sexual crimes every single day in Malaysia.”

Sim commented that the registry was not a new idea, citing how besides having been proposed locally in 2007, it is already in use in Australia, the United Kingdom, the States, and South Africa.

He pointed out that the Malaysian legal system did little to protect women and girls, and that our local culture also perpetuated disrespect for women as “evidenced by the various sexist innuendos by even our Parliamentarians”.

This possibly refers to certain controversial comments made in Parliament, the most recent one being by Baling Member of Parliament Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, who remarked on female non-Muslim MPs entering mosques while ‘bocor’, or menstruating.

“In its present form, the legal system in our country is totally inadequate to protect women and girls. There is a pressing need to reform the entire legal system,” said Sim.

“The present legal system does not seem to be on the side of women and girls.”

Though he did not provide sources, he referred to statistics saying that a woman is raped in Malaysia every 15 minutes, and that 100 women become victims of rape every day, half of them being below 16 years old.

He also cited a report made in 2002 by local NGO All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) that only one in ten reported rape cases are brought to court, and contrasted that with a later report by the Penang-based Women’s Centre for Change (WCC) that showed only 4% of these cases being finally convicted, after “torturous court proceedings mostly suffered by the victims and their family”.

“The recent Court of Appeal’s acquittal of 60-year old Bunya Jalong in Sarawak, who was found guilty by the lower courts of raping and impregnating a 15-year old, is but one nauseating example of how counterintuitive our legal system is when it comes to the protection of women and girls,” said Sim.

He also questioned the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry on their silence on the matter, given that they were one of the original proponents of the Sexual Offenders Registration Act in 2007.

“What has happened to the Bill now? Why the U-turn by the Ministry after so much effort has been poured into this Act?” asked Sim.

He called on the three former Women, Family and Community Development Ministers — Ng Yen Yen, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, and current Prime Minister Najib Razak — to speak out on the Bill.

“I also call on former IGP Musa Hassan, who has been a strong proponent of the Bill from the beginning, to join us to pressure the current government to implement the Sexual Offenders Registration Act,” said Sim.

“It has been eight long years.…We cannot wait anymore.”