As published in The Star and Malaysiakini
Islamic group condemns 'sexy' school uniforms
May 22
An Islamic group today condemned the uniform worn by girls at government schools, saying it encouraged rape and pre-marital sex.
"The white blouse is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of attraction," National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia vice-president Munirah Bahari said in a statement. "It becomes a distraction to men, who are drawn to it, whether or not they like looking at it," she said, calling for a review of uniform policy so that it did not violate Islamic ideals.
In multicultural Malaysia, home to majority-Muslim Malays as well as ethnic Chinese and Indians, female students at government schools have a choice of wearing a white blouse with a knee-length skirt or pinafore. They may also wear a baju kurung which is a traditional long top and skirt, and a headscarf is optional for Malay students.
Munirah said that "covering up" according to Islamic precepts was important to fend off social ills including "rape, sexual harassment and even premarital sex which involve schoolgirls in their teens." "All this leads to babies born out of wedlock and to an extent, even prostitution," she said.
"Decent clothes which are not revealing can prevent and protect women from any untoward situations," she said, suggesting that girls wear a blouse of a different colour or with an undergarment.
However, the girls themselves also came in for criticism, with the association saying some used the white blouse to lure men. "This is the source of the problem, where we can see that schoolgirls themselves are capable of using this to attract men to them," Munirah said.
"This could see them getting molested, having pre-marital sex and all sorts of things."
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My response to this:
Dear Ms. Munirah,
May I first say that though I respect your personal opinion on girls' school uniforms, your recent statement as
vice-president and head of the womens' wing of the Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM) compels me, as a Malay Muslim man, to write this open letter to you.
As I see it there are two assertions which need to be addressed per your original statement on this matter. Firstly, regarding the white school uniform being the cause of incidences of rape and moral decadence among schoolgirls and secondly, that female students lack of assertiveness causing them to get raped.
Let me say that linking the white school uniform to issues of rape, adultery and even prostitution as indicated in your statement is naive, simplistic and erroneous. You recommended that the colour of the school uniform be changed to remove the source of attraction for men. Do you honestly believe that by just changing the colour of the baju kurung, wearing a singlet within or wearing a tudung labuh (which I presume you suggest so that it covers a girl's chest) makes a person safer? What proof do you have to support the assertion you make that wearing clothing in the Muslim tradition or changing its colour will make it safer or as you put it in your statement, "pakaian yang sopan dan menutup aurat boleh mencegah dan melindungi wanita daripada berlaku sebarang perkara yang tidak diingini." You suggest that the Ministry of Education change the colour of the uniform. If white is not suitable and too , what other colour would you suggest? Blue or brown like a prefect's uniform? What colour would you consider to be less lustful to male eyes?
Ms. Munirah. Did you know that there is a disturbing trend has been observed where a lot of Malay men find it a thrill to have sex with a girl wearing a tudung. Quite a few pornographic handphone videos originating from this country now involve girls wearing tudungs. Would you suggest then that women should not wear tudung? The clothing a woman wears should not and is not the issue.
You mention that the lack of assertiveness by girls themselves makes them victims of rape. You imply that they were perhaps allowing for the rape to happen or even had it coming: "Apa yang terjadi sekarang ialah mereka tidak tegas dan membiarkan diri mereka diperlakukan apa-apa sahaja oleh sesiapa."
The two issues you pointed out (the colour of the uniform and girl's lack of assertiveness) in your statement seem to indicate that you place the blame of rape, adultery and prostitution onto women and girl's themselves. Why do you do so? Do you perhaps think that those women and girls who have survived or have died because of rape were already looking for it and deserved it? It certainly seems so from the statement published: "Di sinilah punca yang boleh kita saksikan bahawa pelajar perempuan itu sendiri mempunyai daya tarikan supaya lelaki mendekatinya."Oleh itu terjadilah perkara-perkara seperti pencabulan, penzinaan dan sebagainya." Are you that sheltered from the realities of life?
It seems that you may not know of the brutal rape and murder case of Noor Suzaily Mokhtar, a 24 year old computer engineer who was raped, sodomised and murdered in a bus in 2000. Hanafi Mat Hassan, the driver of the bus, was found guilty of raping and murdering Noor Suzaily. He was sentenced to death for the murder and ordered to be given 12 strokes for the rape. Noor Suzaily was wearing "pakaian yang sopan dan menutup aurat." Her clothes did not prevent nor protect her from being raped.
Rape is a violent crime and is an exercise of power by men and their desire to subjugage those weaker and smaller than them. The way women dress is not the cause of rape.
By saying what you did and believing it, you are contributing to the misconception of men which excuses them from actions such as domestic violence, incest, sexual violence, rape, molestation. You point the finger at girls and women as being intentionally provocative to men. You indicate that men cannot help themselves and really the girls themselves are to blame. You dishonour the memories of not only Noor Suzaily but the many women and girls who have been and continue to be victims of sexual violence.
Your statement is clear evidence that we must work not only to change the attitudes of men but we must also change the mindset of women acting as moral guardians who are every ready to go after their fellow sisters. As you are also a leader in your own right, I urge you to take the lead in changing society's attitudes towards women by making a public commitment to treat women as fellow human beings of equal worth, respect and dignity.
You obviously had good intentions when you issued this statement and thought that it was your duty as a good Muslim woman to bring forth this issue to the attention of the Ministry of Education. I applaud your concern for the personal safety of women and girls, and I hope that this episode does not discourage your interest in social issues.
However, I must say to you that the result of your environment and upbringing may have provided you with a blinkered view of the world. Open your mind, talk to organisations such as AWAM (All Women's Action Society), WAO (Women's Aid Organisation) or Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and please don't forget that the road to hell is also littered with good intentions.
Thanks for your attention.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Thursday, 8 May 2008
It seems that there is nothing wrong with stigmatising certain children in Malaysia
Reproduced from Malaysiakini.com
JPN on the look-out for illegitimate Malay children
Dr Yati Hewett | May 6, 08 4:54pm
On the evening of April 7, a terribly upset young couple walked into my surgery. Earlier in the day, they had an altercation with the staff of the National Registration Department (JPN) at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
The woman was 18 years old and her husband 24 years old. On April 1, she delivered a baby girl weighing 1.4 kg. She was so tiny she had to be put in an incubator. On the day in question, they had gone to visit their baby with a couple of friends. After that the whole group went to the JPN office to register the baby's birth.
The counter staff scrutinised their marriage certificate and after doing some arithmetic, publicly announced the baby was conceived out of wedlock. As such only the baby's name and the mother's name could be entered in the register.
In the space for father's particulars shall be written 'Information not Available'. In the baby's MyKid identity card shall be entered baby's name followed by ‘bin or binti Abdullah’.
The couple refused to register the baby. They were so upset and humiliated. The baby has since died of prematurity. She never had a birth certificate.
After enquiring from several JPN offices at various places, I learnt that the director-general of JPN had issued an internal circular on July 6, 2007 to the effect that JPN should ‘look out’ for illegitimate Malay children and that they be labelled, accordingly, ‘bin Abdullah’ or ‘binti Abdullah’.
From that day many babies do not have their father's names on their birth certificates.
The question that comes to my mind is WHY? In seven years time, when these children go to school they would be subjected to taunts, ridicule and shame. Not to mention the distress , anxiety and pain of the fathers at not seeing their names in such an important document. Why is the JPN inflicting such suffering onto so many people? Who authorised them to be the ‘Guardian of Public Morals’?
In my 14 years of running a maternity practice, I have seen so many government rules come and go. There have been good ones and not so good ones. But the present rule takes the cake. It makes it very hard to register births. Requirements to register births are so stringent that many babies are not registered. Ironically, rulings created today would only create problems for JPN later on.
Previously, any form of identification of the mother would do eg, the marriage certificate. Now she must produce a non-expired passport and a valid visa. It is a common knowledge that runaway migrant workers do not have those. Without birth certificates, the babies are not adoptable. So babies end up in garbage dumps and the like.
And JPN only recognises marriage certificates issued in Malaysia. Many Malaysian men went to Indonesia and brought back young brides. Their children are all 'bin/ binti Abdullah'.
Marriage certificates are not a must to register the birth of a baby. All that is required is both mother and father sign a declaration at the back of Borang JPN.LM01 (known as Section 13 ) in front of a JPN official. This is provided for by the law.
This provision was taken away from Muslims by JPN from July 2007. As far as I know, this provision in the law has not been amended or withdrawn. The fact that JPN could issue a circular counter to the law is something that should be looked into.
Children are our future. They should be protected. Religious zealots in the civil service should be identified and given the boot.
----------------------------------------------
My comments:
I read the above letter written by Dr. Yati Hewitt titled "JPN on the look-out for illegitimate Malay children" published on Malaysiakini and the response by Joseph Paul and Anak Perelih on Vox Populi. I am just seriously p***ed off that once again the creeping Islamisation of our governance systems rears its ugly head. Religious zealots continue to hijack our lives here in Malaysia. If it wasn't because of a concerned doctor who personally knew the case and did extensive background research on this issue, we wouldn't have known about this ridiculous circular.
I call upon anyone who has access to this circular to share it with us on the Internet. It needs to be condemned.
I am now wondering how many children and their parents in Malaysia are now suffering in silence as a result of Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara's need to be moral guardians for Muslims. How many have 'Information not Available' on their birth certificate as a result of JPN clerks doing calculations as to when a husband and wife had sex?
I am a Muslim and I am sick and tired of supposedly secular bodies (i.e. JPN) acting as moral guardians for Muslims/Malays which is neither in their mandate nor responsibility given to them.
You might ask why only Malay Muslims? Because we are the only ones who can be inflicted on with this sort of thing by the powers that be with impunity. It will be argued (nah, it won't even be debated) that this is an Islamic related issue determined by people who know better. The non-Muslims will be told to not stick their noses in as this is a Malay Muslim issue, which is already happening.
A blogger by the name of Anak Perelih, commenting on this letter, has in fact stated that non-Muslims should not comment on issues which affect Muslims as it might be interpretated as meddling in Islamic affairs. Well, I am glad that my non-Muslim brothers and sisters are able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Muslims in fighting against actions which lack common sense, better judgement, dignity, and respect for the rights of children. I welcome their support any day.
But wait a minute. Does it not alarm anyone that this 'initiative' has come from the JPN, a non-Syariah government agency? Some senior civil servant who feels that he needs to be more religious has, with this action, practically decided that his department should be an extension of the Syariah system.
Let's not talk about the wali business as really no kadi has yet asked and demanded for the date of one's conceivement by one's parents to verify whether or not one's father is the legitimate wali. In this case, this action achieves nothing but violates a child's rights and inflicts pain and suffering on the parents.
A birth certificate that has "information not available" in place of a father is a dead giveaway and a recipe for stigma and discrimination which will be faced by the child for at least 12 years of his or her life if not more. This action is already being done for children born out of wedlock whose fathers cannot be identified. In this case, though the father is clearly identified and married to the mother, it appears that our 'moral guardians' must still insist extracting their pound of flesh.
I call on our Members in Parliament and the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, to address this injustice. This discriminatory, judgemental, circular/ directive must be rejected/repealed.
JPN on the look-out for illegitimate Malay children
Dr Yati Hewett | May 6, 08 4:54pm
On the evening of April 7, a terribly upset young couple walked into my surgery. Earlier in the day, they had an altercation with the staff of the National Registration Department (JPN) at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
The woman was 18 years old and her husband 24 years old. On April 1, she delivered a baby girl weighing 1.4 kg. She was so tiny she had to be put in an incubator. On the day in question, they had gone to visit their baby with a couple of friends. After that the whole group went to the JPN office to register the baby's birth.
The counter staff scrutinised their marriage certificate and after doing some arithmetic, publicly announced the baby was conceived out of wedlock. As such only the baby's name and the mother's name could be entered in the register.
In the space for father's particulars shall be written 'Information not Available'. In the baby's MyKid identity card shall be entered baby's name followed by ‘bin or binti Abdullah’.
The couple refused to register the baby. They were so upset and humiliated. The baby has since died of prematurity. She never had a birth certificate.
After enquiring from several JPN offices at various places, I learnt that the director-general of JPN had issued an internal circular on July 6, 2007 to the effect that JPN should ‘look out’ for illegitimate Malay children and that they be labelled, accordingly, ‘bin Abdullah’ or ‘binti Abdullah’.
From that day many babies do not have their father's names on their birth certificates.
The question that comes to my mind is WHY? In seven years time, when these children go to school they would be subjected to taunts, ridicule and shame. Not to mention the distress , anxiety and pain of the fathers at not seeing their names in such an important document. Why is the JPN inflicting such suffering onto so many people? Who authorised them to be the ‘Guardian of Public Morals’?
In my 14 years of running a maternity practice, I have seen so many government rules come and go. There have been good ones and not so good ones. But the present rule takes the cake. It makes it very hard to register births. Requirements to register births are so stringent that many babies are not registered. Ironically, rulings created today would only create problems for JPN later on.
Previously, any form of identification of the mother would do eg, the marriage certificate. Now she must produce a non-expired passport and a valid visa. It is a common knowledge that runaway migrant workers do not have those. Without birth certificates, the babies are not adoptable. So babies end up in garbage dumps and the like.
And JPN only recognises marriage certificates issued in Malaysia. Many Malaysian men went to Indonesia and brought back young brides. Their children are all 'bin/ binti Abdullah'.
Marriage certificates are not a must to register the birth of a baby. All that is required is both mother and father sign a declaration at the back of Borang JPN.LM01 (known as Section 13 ) in front of a JPN official. This is provided for by the law.
This provision was taken away from Muslims by JPN from July 2007. As far as I know, this provision in the law has not been amended or withdrawn. The fact that JPN could issue a circular counter to the law is something that should be looked into.
Children are our future. They should be protected. Religious zealots in the civil service should be identified and given the boot.
----------------------------------------------
My comments:
I read the above letter written by Dr. Yati Hewitt titled "JPN on the look-out for illegitimate Malay children" published on Malaysiakini and the response by Joseph Paul and Anak Perelih on Vox Populi. I am just seriously p***ed off that once again the creeping Islamisation of our governance systems rears its ugly head. Religious zealots continue to hijack our lives here in Malaysia. If it wasn't because of a concerned doctor who personally knew the case and did extensive background research on this issue, we wouldn't have known about this ridiculous circular.
I call upon anyone who has access to this circular to share it with us on the Internet. It needs to be condemned.
I am now wondering how many children and their parents in Malaysia are now suffering in silence as a result of Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara's need to be moral guardians for Muslims. How many have 'Information not Available' on their birth certificate as a result of JPN clerks doing calculations as to when a husband and wife had sex?
I am a Muslim and I am sick and tired of supposedly secular bodies (i.e. JPN) acting as moral guardians for Muslims/Malays which is neither in their mandate nor responsibility given to them.
You might ask why only Malay Muslims? Because we are the only ones who can be inflicted on with this sort of thing by the powers that be with impunity. It will be argued (nah, it won't even be debated) that this is an Islamic related issue determined by people who know better. The non-Muslims will be told to not stick their noses in as this is a Malay Muslim issue, which is already happening.
A blogger by the name of Anak Perelih, commenting on this letter, has in fact stated that non-Muslims should not comment on issues which affect Muslims as it might be interpretated as meddling in Islamic affairs. Well, I am glad that my non-Muslim brothers and sisters are able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Muslims in fighting against actions which lack common sense, better judgement, dignity, and respect for the rights of children. I welcome their support any day.
But wait a minute. Does it not alarm anyone that this 'initiative' has come from the JPN, a non-Syariah government agency? Some senior civil servant who feels that he needs to be more religious has, with this action, practically decided that his department should be an extension of the Syariah system.
Let's not talk about the wali business as really no kadi has yet asked and demanded for the date of one's conceivement by one's parents to verify whether or not one's father is the legitimate wali. In this case, this action achieves nothing but violates a child's rights and inflicts pain and suffering on the parents.
A birth certificate that has "information not available" in place of a father is a dead giveaway and a recipe for stigma and discrimination which will be faced by the child for at least 12 years of his or her life if not more. This action is already being done for children born out of wedlock whose fathers cannot be identified. In this case, though the father is clearly identified and married to the mother, it appears that our 'moral guardians' must still insist extracting their pound of flesh.
I call on our Members in Parliament and the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, to address this injustice. This discriminatory, judgemental, circular/ directive must be rejected/repealed.
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