Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar stirred up a bee’s nest of controversy yesterday when he said Malaysia’s minorities are more accepting of cases of statutory rape and sexual violation.
Wan Junaidi had been answering a question in Parliament by Setiu Barisan Nasional MP Che Mohamed Zulkifly Jusoh on the low incidents of reported cases of sexual violations amon non-Malays.
The deputy home minister seemed to suggest that a lower level of tolerance by the country’s Malay community for sexual predators who prey on minors is a contributing factor to the high number of reported cases involving Malays.
“This doesn’t mean the cases mostly involve Malays. Because Malays are culturally more sensitive about its youth so there are more police reports about it,” he said.
“Non-Malays are maybe more accepting about it so the margin (is lower).”
Wan Junaidi said that in 2012, there were 1,550 reported incidents of statutory rape, with Malays kaing up 48 per cent of those cases, followed by Chinese at 5 per cent and Indians at 3 per cent. 90 per cent of the cases reported involved those aged 16 to 19.
He added that the number of reported cases last year dripped to 1,424.
The deputy home minister said
the government has initiated various campaigns to educate the public about the problem as well as crime prevention programmes.
But the deputy minister said public refusal to co-operate has made it hard for the authorities to tackle the problem.
Malaysia was rocked in the past two years by several high-profile cases of men having sex with underage girls, some barely in their teens, which raised questions over the Penal Code.
A 41-year-old Sabahan and father of two was charged with statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl whom he subsequently married last year.
In 2012, a national bowler, who pleaded guilty to having consensual sex with his 13-year-old girlfriend when he was 19, escaped a jail sentence after the Court of Appeal ruled to show leniency, saying the youth had shown remorse.
Story: The Malay Mail Online
