This was especially so when the spouses have been jailed for acts of violence, former Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) executive director Ivy Josiah said.

Josiah pointed out the recent case of a carwash attendant who was jailed for injuring his wife with a parang.

M Meganathan, 29, was sentenced to a year in jail after he pleaded guilty to intentionally hurting his wife G Hemalatha, 24.

Hemalatha suffered cuts on her lips and wrist in the incident last May at the couple’s home in Ara Damansara here.

The court ordered the accused, who had been jailed for three years for robbery, to serve the jail sentence from the date of his arrest last August.

Josiah expressed worry that the husband might seek revenge on his wife for his incarceration upon his release.

“It can be dangerous for women whose husbands come out of jail seeking revenge.

“The courts have to be sensitive to the fact that domestic abuse tends to carry on even after the perpetrator has been punished.

“The courts have to make provisions to ensure the protection order continues and that the husband doesn’t come anywhere near his wife when he comes out of jail.”

WAO advocacy manager Yu Ren Chung said the jail sentence Meganathan received for hurting his wife was a slap on the wrist.

“Abusers often receive lenient punishments, if they are punished at all. This is a problem, both in terms of justice and deterrence,” she told FMT.

She agreed with Josiah, however, that punishment was just one “policy lever” and that protection needed to be stronger, citing the tragic case of Nurhidayah Abdul Ghani, who was beaten to death by her husband in May 2013.

“The spousal murder of Nurhidayah shows that even after a woman has made several police reports, there are gaps in protection which can cost their lives.”

Nurhidayah, a mother of four, was critically hurt by her husband after she filed for a divorce. She was said to have made numerous police reports over a period of time prior to her death.

On Jan 20, her husband, Jamaluddin Ali, was sentenced to death by the High Court.

Yu agreed that abuse tended to continue after the abuser had been punished, which was why rehabilitative counselling was important.

“We need to enable rehabilitative counselling so that abusers have a better chance of stopping their abusive behaviour after serving their punishment.”

Josiah said there was no data on how domestic abusers were typically punished by the courts.

“That sort of information is not available. The only time we get information about a court case is when it comes out in the papers.

“A pool of data is one of the things that women’s organisations have been calling for. We don’t just need data on how many domestic abuse cases there are. We need data on how many of these cases have gone to court and reached completion.”

On whether the authorities took domestic abuse cases seriously, Josiah said that based on her 30 years’ of experience, the attitude was much better now.

“They’re a lot more serious. They pay a lot more attention to the investigations but, at the same time, they could do with more resources and training.”

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2014/02/19/domestic-violence-victims-need-protection/