Safety of Our Women

Hasil Nukilan Imperius

Walking around with fear is not something foreign for almost if not all girls and women. Be it when walking in a group or alone, the fear of being harassed is always there. This issue has been around for ages and no matter how developed a country is, it is still apparent in haunting female worldwide. This is an international problem that women all across the globe face.

Figure 1: A snapshot from a CCTV surveillance video of a woman being beaten by a man at MRT Taman Mutiara Station

Looking at the newspapers today, cases of women being harassed do not seem to be diminishing, be it from getting catcalled, to being followed, stalked, flashed, or the worst case of getting raped. The fact that it may happen literally anywhere is infuriating as well. Be it on the streets, at work, in universities and even in one’s neighbourhood. Although there’s already numbers of initiatives from the government and authorities to help in guarding and protecting the female in the country, there are still numbers of cases increasing per day.

There are multiple opinions and perceptions on said issue from all layers of society. Some are pointing fingers on the ladies for walking around at dangerous places or for walking alone. Some would suggest for them to learn martial arts so that they can protect themselves when unwanted occurrence happen.

Figure 2: Dead body of a woman found at a river in Simpang Renggam – photo credits to PDRM

This victim blaming culture where people say that the fault comes from the women who walk alone is very misleading. There are days where it is just inevitable for women to walk on their own. As women now are more exposed and involved in the working industry, or even out of working context, there are many situations where women must go to places and sometimes there are no chaperone available to accompany her. There are even times where it would be inconvenient to ask someone just to accompany a woman to her destination for the sake of looking out for her.

It’s not like we don’t already have regulations and acts to protect the women of our country. However, there may be loopholes in the enforcement practice or even generally in the efforts of safeguarding our citizen in terms of preventing the likelihood of these cases to happen in the first place, without only focusing on women. For example, the CCTV installed at public places may only be useful after some unwanted occurrence where they would only use the CCTV facility to look at and identify the culprits. This does not help in combating the incident from happening.

But above all, there will definitely be no harassment without harassers. It is crucial that we have our men to protect women instead of being the ones to bring the harm to them. We should educate and tell our sons to respect and treat girls better as much as we teach our daughters to always be careful and be alert on potential danger.

 

Nurin Nadzlah binti Abu Bakar

Luminous, Imperius