Sabah Women’s Action Resource Group (Sawo) president Winnie Yee said domestic abuse cases in East Malaysia usually flew under the government’s radar, as most of their plans were centred around the peninsula.
She acknowledged that the women, family and community development ministry was working on setting up social support centres, but said this was of little help for those living deep inside rural areas without access to proper roads.
“Not much has been done, apart from the centres and providing more hotline numbers to call. Many communities in Sabah would find it difficult to reach these hotlines, because getting a phone connection is not as easy as it is in Kuala Lumpur or Selangor,” she told FMT.
For those who lived in areas with network coverage, Yee said Sawo had received a 600% increase in calls requesting for social support or food aid in 2020.
She added that it was likely that child abuse cases had been underreported in the past year, as many were forced to stay home with their perpetrators without the supervision of adults from other households.
The women’s ministry recorded a total of 4,349 cases of physical, sexual and emotional abuse on children last year, along with 2,287 domestic violence cases. It had said the numbers were especially high during the implementation of the various movement control order (MCOs)
Earlier this month, the police also revealed that 259 reports had been lodged alleging incest involving minors in 2020.
The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) noted that children were increasingly exposed to inappropriate content online, given that they were spending more time with their devices for home-based learning.
“We used to prohibit handphones at school but now, they have to use it to study. We are not preparing children to handle online information,” Suhakam children’s commissioner Noor Aziah Mohd Awal said.
She added that it was important to incorporate sexual and reproductive health education into their studies, so they were able to protect themselves from future abuse, but added that the education ministry was not keen on the idea.
Noor Aziah also called for the government to appoint “mobile counsellors” to address the issue on the ground, rather than waiting for calls to come to its Talian Kasih hotline.
Yu Ren Chung, deputy executive director for the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), said it was too early to see the current lockdown’s impact on domestic violence cases, but fortunately rights groups and government agencies were more prepared this time around to issue public messages on the types of support and protection available.
In addition to this, Yu urged the National Security Council to also issue announcements on the types of support and make it clear that domestic violence survivors were allowed to leave the house to escape abuse.
“Throughout the duration of MCO 2.0 and emergency period, it is critical that public resources, such as essential services for survivors of violence including shelter provision, crisis hotlines and psychosocial support, do in fact continue to function and that resources are not diverted away from the critical response to survivors,” Yu said.
He also stressed the need for an “emergency response plan for domestic violence”, adding that it should be integrated into the country’s national disaster management plans so everyone would be more ready to respond in future crises.