The trend of novels that romanticise the crime of rape is not new.
Circa 2012, our Malaysian book market was flooded with novels such as ‘Ombak Rindu’ and ‘Ariana Rose’. These novels raised the same theme wherein the protagonist-heroines were raped and eventually married their rapists, who were casted as heroes in the novels.
Even more unfortunate, these novels then were picked up by drama producers and gained their infamy nation-wide, raising a generation of young women who were made to think that rapists are tolerable if the men are good-looking and more so if they are filthy rich.
Young girls, especially secondary school students, were normalised to grow fondness for fictions, where the ‘bad boy’ heroes fall in love with innocent, docile, meek and easily-manipulated girls, who were often treated with much disrespect and some disdain.
Young girls were groomed to imagine themselves as the ‘lucky’ heroines and most regrettable, they were normalized to think men who are nefarious could make for good romantic partners.
What is more disconcerting is taking into account that most of these novels, if not all, are written by women writers.
At the time the trend of teledramas portraying arrogant aggressors in heroic roles were flooding our television and silver screens, many wrote openly to condemn the trend.
Most believed that these dramas were unsuited to be viewed by the general public as they were designed to make young women fantasize about chasing illusory and abusive love. Yet, instead of using all available social controls to curb the trend, our society allowed it to persist.
Are we now reaping what we sow?
Our legal framework has manufactured a multi-faceted system to protect public morality, order and health, more so when it comes to preservation of young minds. Social issues that disrupt this protection can serve as a dysfunction in our social structure, thus causing instability.
Such is the social reality when every month, the media would report sexual offences involving youths, including gang-rapes of young victims perpetrated by young offenders. These are no longer isolated cases but have become the prevalent moral concern. Sadly, we continue to deny the reality.
In 2017, a mega porn site revealed that Malaysian women ranked 7th in the world for most watched porn via mobile devices. A recent statistics published by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia shows that there were 43,943 divorces recorded in 2021.
Have we created modern Malaysian women with rape fantasies, who would prefer to seek pleasure through erotica and porn rather than lasting marital ties?
Our legal provisions in their pristine forms were merely invoked to lace legal discussions but never fully utilised to curb these awful social realities. Our society is now bogged down with social issues involving underage marriage, teenage pregnancy, baby-dumping, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and sexual grooming of children.
Be that as it may, like a broken record, every year there would be talks of enacting new law or amending existing provisions to address these issues.
Lack of law is not the problem.
We must take heed of social analysts’ recommendations and studies that link these social issues with the media portrayal of sexuality among youths.
Lest, we continue condoning hyper-sexuality among our youths with easy access to erotica in Wattpad and porn sites, while we continue leniency on unfettered exposure and sale of smuts that are devoid of any social values, and even worse, that are morally disruptive.
Failure to exercise legal provisions to protect young minds
Law is not the only means of social control. Society is also regulated by value system and social norms.
However, where our social norms fail to protect the sanctity of family values, we are left with no other safety net than to utilise law in its full force to mitigate the loss.
Among the most prominent of the family values is the protection of the weakest unit in the structure, namely the children. To this extent, our legal framework has done its part.
In 1995, when Malaysia ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), one of the main obligations our country agreed to adhere by is the duty to ‘take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parents, legal guardians or any other person who has the care of the child.’
In line with this obligation, Child Act 2001 [Act 611] was passed with its Section 31 effectively enshrines the obligations under Article 19 of the CRC. Following this, Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 [Act 792] came into force on July 7, 2017 to fortify protections against sexual abuses on children, including sexual exploitation and grooming.
Bear in mind that Act 792 was enacted a year after the notorious paedophile, Richard Huckle, who raped and sodomised young, impoverished Malaysian victims, was sentenced to a life imprisonment in Britain.
These legal provisions were relatively new as compared to sexual offences criminalized under Section 377E of the Penal Code, which was first introduced in 1989 and later amended in 2014 and 2017.
These provisions, which specifically address the preservation of innocence in children, are so entrenched within our legal system that the continuance of sexual manipulation of children is unthinkable.
It is well understood that any materials, which target children as its consumers must adhere to strict regulations in order to ensure no child is expose to smut and its disturbing effects.
These provisions must also be cross-referred to provisions enacted for protection of order, morality, health and security of the general public.
For example, Chapter XIV of the Penal Codes enumerates offences affecting public health, safety, convenience, decency and moral. Under it, Section 292 of the Penal Code criminalises sales of obscene materials to general public and Section 293 specifically outlaws sale of obscene objects to young person, defined as anyone below the age of 20-year old.
Whereas Section 294 provides that ‘Whoever, to the annoyance of others— (a) does any obscene act in any public place; or (b) sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words in or near any public place, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months or with fine or with both.’
Section 4(a) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 [Act 301] provides: ‘Any person who causes or permits to be printed or produced by his printing press or machine any publication or document which is obscene or otherwise against public decency; shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to a fine not exceeding RM20,000.00 or to both.’
Section 7(1) of Act 301 further gives the Minister of Home Affairs ‘absolute discretion’ to ban media that is ‘in any manner prejudicial to or likely to be prejudicial to public order, morality, security, or which is likely to alarm public opinion, or which is or is likely to be contrary to any law or is otherwise prejudicial to or is likely to be prejudicial to public interest or national interest’.
Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 [Act 588] bans any usage of network service to make, solicit, or initiate the transmission of any comment, request, suggestion or communication which is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive.
We believe the arms of law are long and strong. However, the enforcement and monitoring mechanisms lack zeal. How could the Ministry of Home Affairs otherwise, excuse the sale of obscene books that are flooding our book market without any repercussion?
Remedy the wrong now, rather than never!
Recently, a prominent book-reviewer wrote at length her revulsion concerning a novel entitled, ‘Darlingku, Mr Cold Mafia’ published in May of this year by Kaki Novel publication house. The novel purportedly contains proses as insipid as its title.
More shockingly, the novel continued with the permeated theme of mentally and sexually abusing its female protagonist including in lines, whereby the intended ‘hero’ threatened his counterpart with rape.
Even as practising lawyers familiar with the detailed case reports on sexual offences, we are baffled at how the word ‘rape’ was thrown freely and widely throughout the book as if the word is just a common word and does not invoke any negative connotation.
We find it truly mind-numbing for a published book to carry such blatant disregard to social norms and legal restrictions.
The writer, editors and publishers have stricter responsibility to ensure their publications do not contain smuts that will bolster normalisation of rape-culture. In spite of that, upon receipt of public condemnation, Kaki Novel issued a sordid ‘apology’, excusing the contretemps as ‘we intended it differently’.
Kaki Novel is not a lone-offender.
Many indie publication houses continue to market materials laden with appalling, gory, execrable, indecent, lewd, and/or obscene contents.
A rape scene is not just presented to readers as a crime scene but sensationalise in its great, blow-by-blow details. Lurid depiction of the depravity is presented, slowly blurring the line between a novel and erotica.
Likewise, a horror story is no longer just written to have the occasional scare but is painted into sanguinary to further highlight the gore.
The more distasteful the content, the more scandalous they are deemed, thus the edgier their indie publication houses are. Most of these indie materials marketed to the public do not carry warning signs to indicate that the contents are not suitable for youths. Some of these materials in fact made their wily ways to public and school libraries.
While we appreciate and celebrate creativity as an ability to understand and generate originality in works of art, nonetheless we strongly condemn any attempt to normalize culture of obscenity and filth to endure in our Malaysian society.
What we read becomes food for our thought-processes, which eventually is reflective is our belief and behaviour. Stop feeding our young minds with junks!
We call on members of Malaysian public to report any books that normalize sexual exploitation of young audience. It is time that we function better as guardians of our young children.
We implore the law enforcement agencies under the Home Ministry to take action and stop sale of obscene books, especially those that are openly marketed to attract young readers. We have tolerated a decade of smuts in our book market.
Enough is enough!
Fatihah Jamhari is a practising lawyer, Vice President II cum Head Human Rights Bureau of the International Women’s Alliance for Family Institution and Quality Education (WAFIQ) and Honorary Secretary of Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the UPR Process (MACSA).
Murnirah Mahadzir is a practising lawyer and Head Youth Bureau of WAFIQ.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.