Open letter to senator Mohd Imran Abd Hamid

LETTER | Dear senator,

I am gobsmacked, dumbfounded, shocked and stunned by your proposal to enact a sexual harassment law to protect men from being seduced into committing sexual crimes such as rape, incest and molest.

Surely you realise that the enactment of this law should be directed at protecting women and children instead?

You are reported to have said that men need to be protected from the actions and clothing of women. As a man (and I would like to think a full-blooded male) I find it preposterous and even insulting that you think that men are so easily seduced into committing a crime of a sexual nature.

If we follow your train of thought, then we should have laws to protect men from other crimes such as stealing as well. Let's not market or display luxury items in a store as that would entice men to steal. 

 While we are at it, let's not advertise and display food either because the sight of delicacies and elegant, delicious-looking food would be just another form of bait for men to commit a crime.

Look around you. Ask around as well. Surely you are not so naive as to not know that rape happens to women of all shapes and sizes. 

Women of all ages, cultures and lifestyles are raped irrespective of what they wear – even some women who have worn the burqa have been raped or molested. 

How then do you explain how and why these women were raped? And what about children and even babies? Let's not forget young boys, too, who are raped by men.

Rape, incest and any other form of sexual crime are premeditated. It is an act of violence and it is about exerting power and control. Statistics show that almost 90 percent of rape victims are abused by people that they know. 

 It is never about women passing the wrong signals or inviting sexual abuse by what they say or wear. 

It is about men not being able to take 'no' for an answer. It is about men thinking that they are superior to women and they can then do whatever they want. It is about men not respecting women. It is simply about men not being able to control themselves.

What you are doing is nothing short of shifting the blame for sexual crimes on to women. They are the victims. Please understand that. Whatever a woman wears, says or does is never a justification for a sexual crime to be committed against her. Never.

Please focus on protecting those that need protection and not come up with preposterous reasons to justify sexual crimes. I think I speak for the majority of Malaysians on this.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.