KUALA LUMPUR: Seven more Penan teenagers and young women came forward to relate their stories of rape, the Penan Support Group said in its latest report.
The report, "A wider context of sexual exploitation of Penan women and girls in Middle and Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia", by the group of 36 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), was released in Parliament Tuesday.
Suara Rakyat Malaysia documentation and monitoring coordinator John Liu said following the findings of the National Task Force Report in September last year, a group of NGOs set out to investigate further the situation in Sarawak, on learning there were other Penan women and their families who wanted to share similar stories.
"We were motivated to document new evidence in light of the Sarawak government leaders' repeated refusals to acknowledge that Penan girls were sexually abused by timber workers and their apparent rejection of the National Task Force Report findings," he said in the Parliament briefing room, at a press conference attended by around 50 representatives of NGOs, Opposition MPs, the Malaysian Bar and embassies.
Liu said the fact-finding mission by the Penan Support Group, Forum-Asia and Asian Indigenous Women's Network visited three Penan communities and one Kenyah community and also listened to evidence from 13 other Penan communities.
The mission found that the women were willing to share their stories but did not want to go to the authorities due to the police's alleged lackadaisical response in the past, coupled with the lack of identity cards, language barrier and prohibitive cost of travel, he added.
The cases revealed patterns of violence and harrassment, abduction, rape, physical assault, emotional abuse, coercion into marriage and desertion upon pregnancy, Liu said.
"The documentation refutes those who, in the past, rejected the veracity of the Penan women's claims," he added.
Women's Aid Organisation social worker manager Wong Su Zane said some of the women travelled two or three days out of jungle to meet the team of 13 volunteers at their base camp during their fact-findinviolence and harrassment, abduction, rape, physical assault, emotional abuse, coercion into marriage g mission from Nov 1 to 7 last year.
"Many of them cried and are still very angry because of the pain they had to go through," she said.
PKR's Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin said she would raise an emergency motion on Monday for a Royal Commission to be set up to investigate the cases, as well as the wider land and social issues related to sexual exploitation.
Source: The Star
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