Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) advocacy officer Kiran Kaur said Malaysia does not have enough shelters to accommodate domestic abuse victims. There are currently 43 such shelters nationwide.
She said the number of domestic abuse cases has increased four-fold since the movement control order was implemented in March last year.
Malaysia would need at least 314 shelters for abused women if it were to follow the minimum standards set by the Council of Europe, Kiran said.
A spokesman for the All Women’s Action Society (Awam) said more social support centres should be built to act as temporary shelters for victims of domestic abuse.
These centres would help reduce the burden on current shelters that “are already at over-capacity”, she said.
She said the government should also fund capacity building training sessions to enable welfare officers dealing with domestic abuse cases to gain exposure on violence against women and how to deal with survivors.
DAP’s Kasthuri Patto said the housing and local government ministry and women’s organisations should work together in setting up domestic violence shelters.
“This is especially so if there is a Covid-19 positive case (in the shelter). Where will the women and children go?” she said.
In addition to shelters for victims of domestic violence, WAO and Awam called for training programmes for women who had lost their jobs during the pandemic for them to be employed again.
“We recommend that the government offer women avenues to upskill themselves outside of entrepreneurship with pathways into the formal workforce,” Kiran said.
Awam said the training programmes should not only be of high quality but should be targeted for their intended audience.
Both Awam and WAO also urged the government to set aside allocations to solve the issues of “period poverty” which hinders women’s access to menstrual products and education, especially in rural areas.
“The government should pursue a long-term plan by introducing laws that make it compulsory to give free sanitary products to all women,” Kiran said.
She also said these sanitary products could be made readily available in spaces such as education institutions and offices through targeted government subsidies.
Awam said making menstrual products free for all women would validate Malaysia’s place on the United Nations Human Rights Council.