LETTER: The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) cautiously welcomes the announcement by Women, Family, and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rina Harun that the Sexual Harassment Bill will be tabled in Parliament this year.
The need for the Sexual Harassment Bill is more clear than ever during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. Covid-19 and the necessary Movement Control Order (MCO) that was put in place to curb the spread of the virus have exposed and amplified many gender inequalities.
This has manifested in many forms, including in a sharp rise in physical and online gender-based violence observed firsthand by NGO service providers like All Women's Action Society (AWAM), Women's Aid Organisation (WAO) and KRYSS Network.
While enquiries to WAO's Hotline multiplied by 3.5 times after the start of the MCO, AWAM has also received an increase in enquiries from young women seeking mental health support and information on legal and sexual rights. 23 percent of calls received on AWAM's helpline were sexual harassment cases, of which more than 38 percent were online sexual harassment.
KRYSS Network continues to receive complaints of online gender-based violence faced by victims resulting from acts of doxxing and non-consensual distribution of intimate images (NCII).
Even prior to the MCO, preliminary findings from a survey by ENGENDER Consultancy and Sisterhood Alliance of 544 respondents in Malaysia showed that 60.25 percent had experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.
The Sexual Harassment Bill is urgently needed to address inequalities experienced by women, and which have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. The Sexual Harassment Bill must contain provisions to adequately protect and offer redress to all survivors of sexual harassment.
First and foremost, the bill must be inclusive in who is covered under the scope of the law. Any individual who experiences sexual harassment regardless of the context--whether professional, educational, religious, public, or private--must have the ability to seek protection and recourse. The bill must equally protect every person, regardless of location or legal status.
Second, the bill must be comprehensive in the way it defines sexual harassment. The definition of sexual harassment should include any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the person harassed or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.
Additionally, it must include all types of conduct, across all types of mediums, from physical conduct to implied or overt verbal, non-verbal, visual or gestural conduct, whether taking place in person or in the virtual world using any variety of platforms, from text, to WhatsApp, to social media, to video-conferencing technologies.
Finally, the bill must be expansive in the obligations it imposes and in the protections and redress mechanisms it affords to survivors. For example, this includes imposing a proactive duty on all organisations to implement a sexual harassment policy so that the law is not only reactive to incidents of harassment that have already transpired, but also proactive in preventing sexual harassment.
This also includes establishing a Sexual Harassment Tribunal to allow survivors to bring complaints of sexual harassment in a way that is less expensive, faster, and less burdensome. Many survivors of sexual harassment opt not to file a police report against their perpetrator, and simply want the harassment to stop or for their position prior to the harassment to be restored.
The Tribunal must have the ability to grant a wide variety of remedies so that it is established as a viable alternative to filing a police report or going to civil court. The enactment of an inclusive, comprehensive and expansive Sexual Harassment Bill will formally acknowledge the severity of the harm and the negative effect sexual harassment can have on women's economic, public, and political participation, as well as on their personal lives.
Similarly, we hope that the government, and the Ministry of Women in particular, will continue to engage with the women's rights groups to ensure that the Sexual Harassment Bill that gets tabled in Parliament is tailored and responsive to the everyday realities of women in Malaysia.
ALL WOMEN'S ACTION SOCIETY (AWAM)
ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN LAWYERS (AWL)
PERSATUAN KESEDARAN KOMUNITI SELANGOR (EMPOWER)
JUSTICE FOR SISTERS
KRYSS NETWORK
PERAK WOMEN FOR WOMEN (PWW)
SISTERS IN ISLAM (SIS)
SABAH WOMEN'S ACTION-RESOURCE GROUP (SAWO)
SARAWAK WOMEN FOR WOMEN SOCIETY (SWWS)
TENAGANITA
WOMEN'S AID ORGANISATION (WAO)
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times