Menstruation checks in schools need to stop

When a teacher touches a student inappropriately, we would identify that immediately as sexual harassment, as we should.

If the scenario had been the sexual harassment of a female student by a male teacher, that would have been easy to condemn, again, as we should.

But today I am here to call out a more insidious form of sexual harassment, committed by female teachers towards female students in the name of religion.

This form of sexual harassment is rarely called out, because it is disguised as "spot checks", and committed by female teachers, often the ustazahs (female Islamic teachers) towards female Muslim students.

I went to secondary school at a national public school in Shah Alam. I was there throughout my secondary school years, with the first two years of lower secondary school being in the afternoon school session. This means the zuhur and asar prayers were performed at school.

When it was time for prayers, all Muslim students are required to be at the surau (prayer hall) to pray in congregation. The time allocated for this is usually about 20 to 25 minutes, while those who are allowed to skip this proceed to a specified classroom where they can be monitored and not aimlessly roam around the school.

Female Muslim students who are excused from praying are also required to go the surau, only they stay outside since there's not supposed a majority of them being excused anyway.

And the only way you may be excused from the congregational prayer is when you are on your period. But some teachers take this enforcement too far by insisting on proof of menstruation for the girls to be excused from praying.

I've been sexually harassed many times by teachers who refused to believe that I was on my period when I was not following the others to pray. And I wasn't the only one.

When invasive and repeated questions on my periods were not enough, teachers would touch my private parts from outside my uniform to feel for my sanitary pad.

Though I've never experienced this myself, I've heard from friends from other schools who literally need to show that they were bleeding. They were given cotton buds that they are supposed to swap from their pads or vaginas in order to really confirm that the girls are on their period.

This may sound disgusting and outrageous for those who are hearing this for the first time, but it is so commonly practiced. Of course the boys never have to go through this, since they don't have any biological excuses for skipping prayers.

Abuse of power

The problem with this whole thing is that I did not know it was sexual harassment, students like me never knew that it was sexual harassment, because we trusted our teachers and we did not know that this is not okay.

In this instance, I agree with AWAM's definition of sexual harassment, which is sexual conduct that is unwelcomed, unwanted and unsolicited. It could come in many forms, not just physical.

Worse, we were made to believe that this was necessary. The Muslim prayer is one of the main obligatory rituals for Muslims, and skipping any of the five prayers in a day is considered a great sin. So in order to prevent us from sinning, sexually harassing students in such an invasive manner was justified.

Imagine my utter shock and embarrassment after finding out that there was nothing Islamic in this practice. I felt so violated and traumatised by this form of religious education.

Unfortunately for me, and others like me, we realised this too late and never had the opportunity to take action against this practice when we were in school.

Teachers have power and authority over their students, at least during school hours. I now realise that this is a form of abuse of power, for the students are often too confused, or too scared, to speak up against their teachers.

All the while, this happens every day of every school week, to a lot of girls in Muslim-majority schools in Malaysia. I have so far collected 18 stories from Malaysian women who experienced this in schools. I have stories from Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia as well.

Sexual education is now more important than ever. There were many reasons why we did not speak up for ourselves and complain about this, but the primary reason was because we did not know.

Defining sexual violence

When it comes to prevention of sexual harassment, violence and abuse of children, the best prevention is always knowing what sexual violence is in the first place. How do we expect children to report violence and abuse when they do not even know that it is wrong?

The sexual harassment did not stop even when I switched to the school’s morning session, when school ends before the prayer times so the likelihood of being "checked" for your period is reduced significantly.

Sometimes, there would be special events at the surau that involves non-obligatory prayers. Even though the prayers were not obligatory in Islam, but for those events, the school teachers would force all available Muslim students to participate. And the nightmare "checks" would begin again for the girls who would want to skip it for whatever reason.

It has been eight years now since I finished secondary school, but the violations of my spiritual space and physical body remain vivid memories till this day.

What kind of message are we sending our children and teenagers if we continue to allow this to happen? That certain people are allowed to touch your bodies inappropriately because they want to protect you from hell? This is unacceptable and it should never be acceptable.

If you have school-going children today, please ask the girls if their teachers have ever touched them inappropriately to check for their periods and let those stories come to light.

We cannot let our children suffer in silence any longer. Our religious teachers also need to know that "period checks" are wrong and that they are definitely a form of sexual harassment and violation.

There is no big enough religious obligation that would warrant such oppression towards children and young adults.

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MARYAM LEE is collecting stories of "period checks" done in schools with other regional feminists. If you have such stories or know anyone who does, please contact her at lee.maryam@gmail.com.- Mkini