Another student tells of an incident in a high school when a Kemahiran Hidup subject teacher regularly molested, groped and touched students. The victim says this went on for years, traumatising a lot of students.

These were among the sexual harassment incidents experienced by students which were compiled and read today during a Facebook live event to highlight the severity of the problem.

Males, females, and even transgender shared their experiences, with some of them speaking of the mental breakdown they experienced for years after the experience.

The incidents were from an Instagram page #MakeSchoolASaferPlace which received over 800 emails from survivors.

Social activist Marina Mahathir said people needed to believe the complainants.

“Don’t say they are lying because it is difficult for anyone to talk about harassment. If we do not stop sexual harassment it will continue at work because what kids learn in school continues,” she said during the event.

She said it points to inequality between young and old, people with power and without power.

“We need to tackle this at the very start,” she said, adding that the government and the community need to take the matter seriously. Otherwise, she said, adults would have failed the children as policymakers and as human beings.

Another victim was 14, when a classmate kept touching her breast and other boys kept harassing her for sex. The victim’s email read that she was young and believed that it was all her fault.

Other stories were from a student aged 12 about a teacher in his 20s who constantly sexually flirted with her, telling her how pretty she was and he tried to touch her.

“I hate it because it happened in school when it was supposed to be a safe place,” the victim said.

Others said their ustaz made jokes about rape and sex, while boys told girls about the size of their breasts or males touched other boys penises.

“Some of boys wanted to give me RM1 for sex,” said another victim, adding that they had painted her name and phone number in an underground tunnel, saying she provided sex services for RM1.

Another speaker Nur Farah Diana called on the government to impose strict SOPs on how a teacher should behave with students.

Speaker Dr Munirah Ibrahim warned that if not tackled, the preparators would indulge in domestic violence.

“Let’s empower girls and boys to speak up. This is a national issue. Let’s start with our schools, police, politicians and the government.

“It must be dealt with zero tolerance,” Munirah added.

In April, teenager Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam had made a simple video on TikTok and posted it on Twitter in which she voiced concerns about her teacher’s rape jokes.

At the Facebook live event, Ain told the victims that even if the harassment happened a long time ago they deserve a platform to talk about it.

“You are allowed to self care and unload some of the pain you carry. Your healing matters,” she added.