“Must be a father-daughter or an uncle-niece day out”, I thought to myself.
Soon however things turned a little ugly. The man brushed the little girl’s shoulders before his hand made its way down to her buttocks, that he proceeded to fondle gently. Confused, I was fixated on the girl’s reaction, only to see her happily reciprocating the man’s gestures.
My motherly instinct kicked in. I wanted to ask the girl where her mommy was and who the man was. I wanted to ask if her mom knew where she was and who she was with. I wanted to ask if the man had touched other parts of her body or requested she agree to something she was not comfortable doing. Gosh, I just wanted to grab her and take her home to her mother.
And then my common sense kicked in, stopping me from making a scene. I looked around me and everyone else seemed to be perfectly fine with the man’s hand on the girl’s buttocks.
“Am I overreacting?” I asked myself.
Perhaps the man was just an extremely affectionate father. Perhaps they both enjoyed a very close bond. Perhaps fondling buttocks was quite common in their household. I don’t know. But despite the very strong urge to “advise” the man that it was wrong for a male to fondle a young girl’s buttocks, I walked away.
However, the episode continued to haunt me. What if the man was a paedophile? What if the inappropriate touching was his way of grooming her for something else? What if the girl got molested or God forbid, raped? What if the girl was already his sex slave?
As worried as I was for the girl’s safety, I did choose to walk away. In other words, by walking away, I chose to condone his actions.
I remember back when I was nine, and mom laid ground rules on what was permissible and what was not.
“Always keep your legs together. Do not run around the house in your undies and never lie down on the couch without a blanket or at least a sarong to cover yourself. Remember, we are sharing the same roof with a few men – they may be your father and your brothers, but we women must always take extra care of ourselves.”
At the time, I did not understand why it was okay for me to kick my brother’s buttocks but not okay for him to kick mine – mom would chase him around the house with her old broom stick, whenever he did. And it was okay for him to pull my ears when I cheated in games but it was never okay for him to pinch my flabby chest – mom would chase him around our house with her wooden ladle.
As a mother, I taught my daughter what my mother taught me. I taught her that inappropriate touching was never okay – not with family members and never with strangers.
Yet, I chose to walk away from that girl at the café knowing that she was being touched inappropriately by the man she was with.
A few weeks ago, a friend confided in me about her daughter being touched inappropriately by her swimming coach. Questioning her daughter about why she insisted on suddenly quitting her swimming lessons, the young girl told her mother she did not like it when the swimming coach touched her inner thighs, buttocks and chest unnecessarily. Alarmed, my friend decided to pay the coach a visit during one of his lessons and through close observation, saw there was some truth in her daughter’s allegations.
Fearful for the safety of the other children in his swimming class, my friend told the other parents about her observations, only to be brushed off.
“He is like a grandpa to them, so being overly close is common. You are just overreacting,” they told her.
With every other parent dismissing her observations, my friend too decided to drop the issue, leaving the other children exposed to what was clearly, as far as she saw it anyway, inappropriate touching.
Mariam Mokhtar in her recent article “The shame that we try to hide”, wrote that the denial syndrome of some Malaysians in dealing with child sex abuse cases was a reflection of the failure of the system. Fearing the prospect of humiliation and personal shame, many remain unwilling to report the matter to the authorities, she rightfully claimed.
I believe victims and their families are not the only ones afflicted with this denial syndrome – society at large too often deny the significance of what they see around them. Second-guessing themselves, they too often resort to walking away.
Like me.
Like my friend.
But why?
Is it our culture?
We know prevention is better than cure. We’ve heard this adage a million times. Sadly, despite the CCTVs we instal all over the country to nab traffic offenders and robbers, we lack any real initiative to prevent paedophiles from actively roaming our streets.
The public outcry is deafening when the authorities give sexual offenders scholarships or even transfer them far away from the scene of their crimes. But we, ourselves remain silent when a man fondles a child inappropriately right before our very eyes.
I am asking myself why.
I suggest you do too.
Fa Abdul is an FMT columnist.
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