Nor Fazira Saad (right) and her then husband Mohd Fahmi Mohamed Alias. The both were married last year as she was allegedly raped by Mohd Fahmi. She was 13 years old. Fazira’s case has led women’s rights groups to criticise the Syriah Court for allowing child marriages. – November 30, 2013.
"I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.)"
As narrated by Aisha, Sahih al-Bukhari
Too recently, I was called in to do a psychiatric evaluation of 12-year-old Malay Muslim girl who had sexual intercourse with her 23-year-old male cousin. I was told by the referring doctor and the girl's mother that the whole affair was consensual, to which I snarkily replied: "I didn't know 12-year-olds can consent to sex."
If I didn't transmute my anger into sarcasm, I fear I might just hit somebody. After asking a few gentle questions, I learned that the girl knew nothing about sex (beyond a few dirty words boys in her school inserted into her vocabulary) or even that intercourse can result in a pregnancy. She also said she didn't enjoy the act and that it hurt every single time, but had chose to bear it for her amorous cousin's sake. Her parents did not make a police report because it never even occurred to them that what happened to their naïve preteen was rape most foul. If anything, they were angry at the girl for squandering her chastity. Exasperatingly, we actually had to force her parents to alert the authorities, threatening to do so ourselves if they don't.
The law assumes that a person would have to reach a certain age before they are considered competent enough to do certain things: like drive a car, buy booze, vote, or consent to sex and marriage. The age however, differs from country to country and we can debate till the universe collapse about the optimum age at which an individual reaches the requisite level of maturity to say yes to boning, but let's not. In Malaysia, a boy can consent to sex at 18 while a girl can allegedly do so at 16. Statutory rape is a simple enough concept. It is rape - period - if anyone has sex with a boy who's below 18 or a girl who's below 16, no matter how desperately he or she is asking for it.
That also means that in Malaysia, if you are female, the law thinks that you are capable of making life decisions as important as who you want to be married to before you can even drive a car (that's 17).
But wait! According to Act 303, Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) ACT, 1984, there's a little something extra:
No marriage may be solemnized under this Act when either the man is under the age of eighteen or the woman is under the age of sixteen except where the Syariah Judge has granted his permission in writing in certain circumstances.
What this basically means is, you can marry an underage girl (or boy) so long as a Syariah long-beard gives you the okay. Only Muslims in Malaysia are privileged with this special exclusive dispensation (so no legal underage vaginas for the likes of atheists like me). We Malaysians were most recently re-acquainted with this legal peculiarity by that incident in Sabah last year where a 40-year-old restaurant manager raped a 13-year-old schoolgirl in his car. To avoid the legal repercussions of child-fucking, he petitioned to marry his rape victim as his second wife at the Syariah Court - which approved it.
I guess this is one of those "certain circumstances" that the Syariah Court permits. Child rapists can marry their underage rape victims and then continue to legally fuck them forever? Halal!
Our regular court (not guided by the shining wisdom of Allah) however, sentenced the child rapist to 12 years of prison and 2 lashes of the rotan so when he is expected to come out of the slammer, his new bride would finally be of age.
Sorry, everything I've written so far is just a (crucial) preamble to what I actually intend to talk about. Yesterday, our Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, when confronted with statistics that showed that Malay Muslims in this country are disproportionately involved in statutory rape cases, said,
"Maybe the non-Malays are not as sensitive about it, which is why not many people come forward to make reports."
He further said,
"Statistics showed that the reports by Malays were higher than those from the other communities, as the Malay Muslim community could not accept children born out of wedlock, which is against Islam."
Cough. Call me crazy but I don't think that's it, Junaidi dear. He is essentially implying that other races have a more cavalier and accepting attitude towards child rape, hence the purported under-reporting - which I think is ass-backwards because if under-reporting is indeed the case, it makes more sense to say that it is due to Chinese, Indians and other races being more sensitive and ashamed of child rape. Not to mention that Junaidi was also, in a way, claiming that Islam is morally superior to other faiths. In more civilised countries, he had just committed political suicide but in Malaysia, it's just Tuesday.
 |
| "B-b-b-but I pulled that right out of my ass!" |
Now, how disproportionate are the numbers?
In 2012 a total of 1,550 statutory rape cases were reported, out of which 1,243 cases involved Malays, 73 Chinese, 45 Indians and 189 from other races.
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| Mmm... child rape pie. |
2013's figures are commensurate with the preceding year's with 1,147 cases out of 1,424 cases involving Malays, 62 Chinese, 32 Indians and 183 others
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| I intentionally chose yellow to represent the Chinese. I'm Chinese so I can do shit like that. |
Malay Muslims make up about 50.4% of the entirety of Malaysia's population but contributes a whopping 80% of the total reported child rape cases in the past two years. That's the huge honking elephant of a discrepancy that Junaidi was racistly trying to explain away from the living room.
Now, why is that? I would like to propose a counter-theory to the one offered by Junaidi.
What I Think is the Explanation (Maybe).
If they want to arrest me for writing this, they better arrest Mr Junaidi too - though unlike him, I can actually present some evidence backing up my arguments.
Remember that long introduction earlier where I spoke of Act 303 which effectively said that only Muslims in Malaysia are allowed to marry underage girls and boys (so long as they do so under the auspices of the Syariah Court)? That's all relevant here.
In 2009, 479 girls who underwent pre-marital HIV testing for Muslims were under 15 years old - 32 of them were under 10. In 2012 alone, there were 1,165 applications to the Syariah Court for marriage where one of the parties (usually the bride) were below 16. That's almost as many Malay Muslims who were involved in reported statutory rape cases in that same year. A shocking 1,022 (almost 90%) of the 1,165 petitions were approved so I guess "certain circumstances" must cover a lot of ground where it is okay for someone to marry a child according to our Syariah Court's interpretation of Sunni Islam.
One can maybe even say that there already exists a permissive culture amongst the Malay people in viewing children as potential brides. Ready for marriage and motherhood. Ready for sex.
Maybe, just maybe, this normalisation of child marriage in the Malay Muslim community have something to do with their grossly disproportionate over-representation in statutory rape statistics? Is that far-fetched?
Not that there's anything wrong with child marriage, no sirree! I mean, even the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)married Aishah when she was only 6 or 7 years old and consummated their marriage when she was just 9. Clearly all these child marrying business is holy and sacrosanct and falls strictly in line with the highest standards of moral rectitude and cannot ever, ever be questioned, right? After all, as religious people are fond of saying to dirty kuffar like me: all religions are exemplary and teaches only the goodest good.
I wonder if I am going to be asked to talk to any more raped children at work today.
Not allowed to marry children
under any circumstances,
k0k s3n w4i