This article was submitted anonymously
It seems that Malaysia and sexual harassment/abuse/assault cases berpisah tiada. Just when you thought these types of cases were dying down, you get hit by stories that prove otherwise. And it gets more shocking by the day because it shows that sexual assault is a crime that affects all ages and in devastating ways.
On 19 July 2022, a 13-year-old boy in Kedah was detained for trying to force a minor to perform oral sex on him in a car. When the 11-year-old refused, he was slapped and threatened with a knife. The case is now being held under investigation by the police.
There’s not much else about the case other than later on, there was a video of the subject being cornered by villagers and beaten up for his act. You can argue that he deserves it but it’s really unfortunate that someone so young had acted out in such an atrocious way.
And that it could have probably been avoided if the sex talk was made earlier on.
Too Many Cases…
A report in 2020 states that there had been over 993 cases of physical sexual assault involving children below the age of 18, which was an increase from 732 and 591 reported in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
An increase?! Alarming, much? Oh, most definitely. But what’s more is that issues like these keep happening.
A recent 2019 study by the Centre for Governance and Political Studies (Cent-GPS) states that the public have some serious misconceptions about consent, healthy relationships, safe sex and birth control.
A majority of the respondents said that they mostly learned what they know about sex through the media, with 65% of the male respondents defining consent as anything other than a verbal “yes” from their female partners — like facial expressions and body language.
To top that off, Malaysia’s rape cases in the past few years have also evolved to around 3000 cases a year. It can be said that this number should be taken with a grain of salt because these are only the numbers that were reported. Experts believe that the real number could be drastically higher.
Daunting, isn’t it? That’s a pretty high number in itself. But to know that there are probably a lot more that were undocumented is pretty scary.
Let’s Talk About Sex
Which brings us back to the knowledge (or lack thereof) of Sex Ed.
Yes, folks. We’re still going on about “the sex talk” thing. I don’t think we’d ever stop talking about it, if I’m being honest. So buckle up.
Of course, we have to acknowledge that it’s not the only thing that could be done. We don’t know much about this boy and his background to just assume and say that “oh, it’s because of his lack of sexual knowledge that he resorted to violence.” But we’re going with a more obvious approach to this matter as an outside perspective.
Even so, why not talk more about this? Because obviously, “the sex talk” isn’t making its rounds except for when it’s said in a joke or provocatively. And although some sex jokes are funny, we do indeed need to take it seriously at some point.
Because the numbers of abuse are increasing and it’s definitely not that funny anymore. If you don’t teach kids proper sex education, where do you think they’re going to learn about it from?
Sometimes The Internet Is Both Friend And Foe
Sex Ed isn’t just about sex, you know.
One of the reasons why sexual education is so important is to ensure that kids don’t go around looking for information on sex on questionable sites and “learning” from them instead. I mean, yeah, there are relatively good sites where they can actually learn something but how much are you going to bet that that’s not the first link they’d click on?
Sex Ed isn’t just about showing kids what happens when a man and a woman love each other and decide to produce a kid, no, it’s much more than that. It’s supposed to teach you about why your body suddenly decides that it’s ready to start having sex and about what happens if you don’t use protection and the most important thing — consent.
You know, the verbal signs and also visual signs, that your partner is willing or unwilling to have coitus with you. It should also teach you the basics of respecting your partner and not force yourself on them even when they’re uncomfortable.
It also needs to be said that just because kids are learning about sex doesn’t mean that they’re going to immediately start having it. Contrary to popular belief, sexual education actually reduces the amount of sexual activity among teens.
Yeah, what a shocker, huh? It’s almost like if they knew the consequences of unprotected sex and understand the basics of sexual education, they’re much more careful and cautious with how they approach sex in the first place.
Don’t Just Brush It Off
Just to be clear: when we talk about sexual education, we don’t mean porn.
Porn is definitely not the platform someone should educate themselves on when it comes to sexual activities. But the sad truth of the matter is that if a parent or teacher doesn’t educate their children on the subject, they’re going to learn it elsewhere. And that would most likely lead them to sites that are… less than educational.
Consider the shocking case we mentioned earlier. Do you remember what it felt like to be a 13-year-old who’s just “discovering” all these new thoughts and feelings for the first time?
And it’s pretty upsetting when you ask your parents and they’d just brush it off with lines like “you’ll know when you’re older” or tell you to ask your teacher. So if you’re a confused young teen, what better way to “figure stuff out” than to ask your old friend Google?
But the trouble with Google is that it doesn’t really care how old you are. You just search for the information and whatever pops up is “fair deal”. So, it’s no wonder that kids get a hold of this information so easily. They’re just out there… free for all.
And since there’s no real way to limit any NC-17 content for your innocent children’s eyes, you might as well counter that act with real information. While you can.
Who Else Is Going To Do It?
On the plus side, Malaysia’s moving a little bit forward in the sexual awareness department.
Recently, a video of a teacher in Sarawak teaching his students how to properly put on a condom made its rounds on Tiktok. (Note: the video’s now deleted after it caused a commotion online. But the website we’ve linked it to explained the contents of the video. What you read as you scroll under the description though is entirely up to you. *side eye emoji*)
Aside from that, a new sexual harassment bill that actually aims to protect both men and women has been approved.
It’s not perfect, of course. Reina Lum of TikTok actually made several interesting points by pointing out some of the bill’s weaknesses such as the lack of guaranteed protections for the victims after filing a sexual harassment complaint as well as the lack of means to prevent sexual harassment even happening in the first place.
Malaysia still has a long way to go. But even these small steps represent a lot of progress in terms of actually addressing some of the sexual problems in our society.
Coming Full Circle
I can already hear a lot of people in the background hissing and scratching at the idea of sex ed. “That’s so inappropriate!” “Why would he do that?” “I’m telling my father about this!”
Okay, with your whining, I raise you this: why shouldn’t the teacher teach them? You’re obviously not going to, so who else would be deemed responsible?
“They’ll learn it when they get married.” That’s kind of cutting it a little too close, I think. What if they still don’t know? What if they’re just fumbling around in the dark having no clue and it all just makes things uncomfortable and awkward later on? What then, huh?
And what if they didn’t want to have children but when they got married, they didn’t have protected sex (because they didn’t even know how) and had a child they couldn’t afford anyway?
That’s not even counting people who have gotten raped and became traumatised because they were made to believe that it’s their own fault for not protecting themselves better. So many questions. But not enough answers.
Let’s Learn For The Better
The truth of the matter is that although we’re trying, we can never truly be free of these crimes unless it’s handled with the seriousness that it deserves.
We still have a long way to go when it comes to sexual education and the crimes that are associated with it.
So let’s all collectively take a step back and figure out how to tackle this. If we were more open with ourselves and our kids, perhaps we can avoid more tragedies like this. Teach your kids the meaning of the word “no” and when it’s used, even when unsaid because to put it simply:
No Means No: Why Is That So Hard To Understand?
