KUALA LUMPUR: Education and raising awareness are the keys to challenging enabling victim-blaming attitudes when it comes to crimes such as sexual harassment and rape.
Dr Lai Suat Yan, who is University Malaya's senior lecturer of the Gender Studies Programme at Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, said the discourse that the perpetrator needed to be held responsible for committing a crime of a sexual nature had to be reiterated and amplified.
"Just as we do not blame the owners of a jewellery outlet or a well-to-do person for being rich or showing off their possessions when theft occurs at their premises or houses and hold the perpetrators responsible for it, by the same token an attack of a sexual nature cannot be tolerated.
"Blaming a rape victim or survivor for the behaviour of the rapist is an unjustifiable excuse to let the perpetrator off.
"Similarly, saying that a man who rapes cannot control his desire is letting him off the hook and is unacceptable. It also creates an enabling environment that silences survivors and encourages such sexual violations," she told the
Dr Lai, a Gender Studies Scholar, noted that as human beings, men had willpower, agency and rational thought and as such were capable of choosing to exert control over their sexual desire or not.
Those who chose not to exercise their willpower and sexually attack women — a serious crime — needed to take responsibility for it, she added.
She was commenting on Malaysian attitudes and enforcement against sexual harassment in view of the upcoming tabling of an Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill, which may become a reality before year end.
The matter gained traction recently when the issue of rape jokes re-emerged following a viral talkshow video featuring actor Fauzi Nawawi, who claimed he had to "restrain" himself while shooting a rape scene for a film in 2007.
A study involving 1,000 respondents conducted by the Women's Action Organisation (WAO), meanwhile, showed about 50 per cent of them believed rapes happened because women did not take care of themselves properly in how they acted or dressed.
Most of the respondents (83.3 per cent) believed that rape happened because men could not control their sexual desires.
Dr Lai said it was imperative that the school curriculum incorporated topics on healthy friendships and relationships centring on mutual respect between girls and boys, the element of consent and being responsible in a relationship.
She said what constituted sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape could also be incorporated into the curriculum in an age-appropriate manner so that the young were able to not only better protect themselves but also stand up and speak out when such incidences happened.
"This needs to be part of the curriculum in the school system rather than in an ad hoc manner when a women's or a non-profit organisation manages to get the slots with a particular school to raise awareness on these subjects.
"This is particularly important as it is generally taboo to talk about sexual matters in our society, yet sexual harassment and sexual abuse is a fact of life where our young have also been victimised.
"At the basic level, girls and boys can be socialised into actualising their potential rather than subscribing to stereotypes concerning what girlhood and boyhood means, including discourses that excuse criminal sexual behaviour in boys and men."
WAO had, last Sunday, called for a comprehensive Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill to address any gap that hindered full protection of employees who faced workplace sexual harassment. All Women's Action Society (Awam), meanwhile, had urged for the Bill to be survivor-centric.
Awam said Malaysia had legislation such as the Employment Act 1955 and Penal Code that covered sexual harassment, but noted that not all contexts were covered and current redress mechanisms were not responsive to the needs of survivors.
The latest case of rape "joke" occurred after another controversy earlier this year when a 17-year-old teenager reported that a male teacher had made such jokes in class.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Olympic medallist Datuk Pandelela Rinong took to Twitter to share her experience of facing a former coach, who had often made lewd jokes in front of her and other athletes. She said the experience affected her, and the coach was eventually embroiled in a rape investigation involving a national diver.