Datuk Fatimah Abdullah
KUCHING (Feb 3): Datuk Fatimah Abdullah has urged people to be more attentive to children if they raise red flags about sex in order to protect them from sexual predators as such crimes are more prevalent than the public might think.
Reacting to a report in The Borneo Post today on a man here who was sentenced to 17 years in jail and 10 strokes of the rotan for raping his stepdaughter, she said people need to listen more to children and take them seriously.
The Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister said that while the legal system has become ‘more child friendly’, others must play their part in protecting children.
“Relatives, teachers, medics, friends need to listen to children and take seriously what they tell you; be alert to signs of distress and understand how perpetrators groom the children and train them to keep quiet about the abuse.
“Don’t dismiss what children share. Perpetrators come from all walks of life and can appear trustworthy to others, so do listen to children. Teach them about healthy and unhealthy touches; good and bad secrets; and who they can tell if someone makes them feel uncomfortable,” she said in a statement.
She also revealed that a staggering 92.6 per cent of 865 rape cases since 2015 to 2021 in Sarawak were perpetrated by a person known to the victim with 14.3 per cent or 119 of the cases involving incest.
On the age group of the victims, Fatimah said the majority at 555 cases or 64.2 per cent were from the age of 13 to 16; followed by 95 cases involving children from 17 to 18, and 94 involving children 12 and below.
Almost half of the rape cases were perpetrated by the boyfriend of the victim at 46.7 per cent, followed by 29.8 per cent by acquaintances.
Disturbingly, among the incest cases from 2015 to 2021, 45 were perpetrated by the victims’ biological father, 25 by stepfather, 30 by uncles, 19 by grandfathers, 10 by own brother and there was even one by the child of the victim.
On the conviction of the 36-year-old man who raped his stepdaughter in 2018 when she was still 10 years old, Fatimah commended the victim for sharing her trauma and all involved in bringing the perpetrator to justice.
“Like the Malay saying ‘Harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi’. A defenceless, innocent child’s innocence has been stolen by her stepfather, someone who is supposed to protect and care for her. This heinous act will have long term psychological impact on the innocent child.”
“Tragically this crime is more common than the public realise and we need more awareness and more listening to children, so those taking such terrible advantage of their power on them are stopped,” she said.
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