Organised by the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) and the Gender Equality Initiative (GEI), the purpose of the awards is to hold public officials accountable for the statements they make or the actions they take.
Speaking at a post-event press conference, Daniella Zulkifili from the Association of Women Lawyers said, “We don’t just want them to not say certain things but we want them to replace negative statements with more positive ones and this awards ceremony is to show them that they will be held accountable otherwise,” she said.
JAG is made up of the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM), Association of Women Lawyers (AWL), Perak Women For Women (PWW), Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (EMPOWER), Sabah Women’s Action Resource Group (SAWO), Sisters In Islam (SIS), Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and Women’s Centre For Change (WCC).
Inaugurated in 2012, the ‘Aiyoh Wat Lah!’ Awards is an annual awards ceremony doubling as a public education tool, used to raise awareness about the pervasiveness of misogyny, sexism, homophobia and transphobia in the country and to demand higher standards of discourse from public figures and institutions.
The award has seven categories including awards for Foot in Mouth, Insulting Intelligence, Cannot Ignore, Policy Fail, Enough Already, Least Helpful to the Sisterhood, and Right on Track.
This year’s winner for the Foot in Mouth category was the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) for distributing flyers in February last year titled “10 myths about homosexuality”. The flyer made all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about gay people including that they were less likely to be faithful to their partner.
The winner for Insulting Intelligence went to Perak Mufti Harussani Zakaria for his statement in April last year that wives must consent when their husbands demanded sex even if “they are riding on the back of a camel.”
The winner for Cannot Ignore went to the inaction of the police when BFM journalist Aisyah Tajuddin and G25 spokesperson Noor Farida Ariffin were threatened in December last year with rape and physical violence including death, but who ended-up being investigated by the authorities instead for allegedly mocking Islam.
The winner for Least Helpful to the Sisterhood went to former de facto Law Minister Nancy Shukri, who in June last year said that the provision with regard to Section 375 of the Penal Code states that intercourse between a legally married couple continues to remain in force and cannot be considered as rape.
The winner for Enough Already went to Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) for a Friday sermon made in February last year where it said: “Which house would robbers love and break into? Surely house B because it was exposed and made it easy for external elements to intrude. Therefore, that was a simple analogy for women who cover up their aurat.”
The winner for Policy Fail went to the Court of Appeal for their judgement in May last year to acquit a 60-year-old man of raping a 15-year-old teen because he claimed to have used a finger tainted with his semen to penetrate her.
The winner for Right on Track went to Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto who said in November last year that “when MPs stop judging and blaming women for their attire, only then will women be taken seriously as innocent victims of immoral, indecent, obscene advances by people who look through judgmental, sexist lenses.”
Voting was open for three and a half weeks where 1065 people between the ages of under 18 to 46 and above including voters from Australia and the US, picked their choice for winner.
Comedians Shelah who’s real name is Edwin Sumun, and Shanthini Venugopal hosted the awards.