Talk show Relatable great platform to talk about ‘sensitive’ topics surrounding women, says advocates
SHAH ALAM - Enthusiastic response by women advocates in light of Sinar Daily’s first live-discussion Relatable titled Young & Divorced on Tuesday (June 21, 2022).
The episode featured women empowerment, family development and parenting educator Datuk Dr Harlina Halizah, Women’s Aid Organisation services director Charlene Murray and entrepreneur Chiq Ruslan, who shared her experience as a young and divorced woman, as panellists.
The discussion circled around the challenges and stigma faced by women who were divorced at a young age, diving deeper on how the status of divorcee is viewed by society as well as the impact on children going through their parent’s conflict.
Women’s Aid Organisation former director and co-founder Ivy Josiah congratulated Sinar Daily’s Relatable series for successfully covering topics that were considered ‘sensitive’ but important and relatable for women.
“I think the discussion was very healthy (Young & Divorced) and it covered all different aspects. where the gender aspect of divorce was also discussed.
“Because being a divorcee as a woman is a lot more burdensome and there’s a lot of stigma surrounding them compared to male divorcees.
“I really hope that Relatable continues to pick topics that are considered ‘sensitive’ but critical, and makes sure to bring the gender perspective into whatever topic you will choose in the future since it does affect men and women differently,” she was quoted saying when interviewed.
Ivy shared her hope to see more women and the society in general supporting women who were being discriminated, take action and speak up on domestic abuse or violence against women, which was still a silent issue in the country.
She also highlighted the role of the media to raise awareness and give solutions by putting women who have experienced domestic abuse or violence into the picture.
“I think it is really important to seek out women going through the experience, so I like the fact that Relatable actually had a divorcee as part of your panel today.
“It shows how this not just conceptual but it is something real and I hope the show can get more women who can come forward and speak about their terrible experiences, discrimination and how they survived it,” she said.
Family Frontiers President Suriani Kempe alluded similar thoughts, stating that the Relatable series was fantastic initiative as it provides a platform for women to talk about ‘taboo’ topics that were often not given much space.
She mentioned platforms like this could help destigmatise taboo topics like divorce, toxic marriages and how to overcome them.
She further talked about the impact of discriminatory policies in the country to Malaysian families such as the bi-national citizenship.
“Discriminatory policies, or policies that discriminate on the basis of gender have a detrimental impact on Malaysian families.
“These policies that are in practice in our government at the moment contribute to the fracturing of the Malaysian families due to legal restrictions to employment and conferring their citizenship to their children,” she said.
She added one of the biggest factors contributing to divorce is financial distress where the legal restrictions to employment of the foreign spouses give a big impact to the economic state of the bi-national marriages and end up with divorce.
In addition, she said foreign spouses had a harder time staying in the country and staying connected to their children after the divorce due to the lack of appropriate visas that cater to foreign spouse divorce.
Suriani also said Malaysian women who were abroad and married to foreigners and have children with no Malaysia citizenship were extremely vulnerable in situations of divorce where they were often unable to come back and seek the security and protection their home country has to offer as other citizens due to their children’s nationality.
Meanwhile, family and child rights lawyer Goh Siu Lin said the topic discussed on Relatable was a tropical topic that was important for everyone to discuss especially with the rising divorce rates post-pandemic.
She said the fact that families have been confined together in small spaces due to the pandemic has escalated to domestic violence.
She addressed the lack of support in helping the family navigate through the process of divorce and what happened after that.
Recalling the emotional aspect talked about in Relatable, she said the country needed to improve the court system for families here including considering a therapeutic justice system like Singapore or the United Kingdom.
“What happens when we have the therapeutic justice system is that the family court has dedicated counsellors and child representatives as part of the system.
“So when the parents are separating, the child’s voice which is commonly not heard in the family court will not be lost.
“Like in Singapore, they have a list of panels, lawyers or child advocates to help with this and we need this implemented both in the civil court for Muslim and non-Muslim families,” she said during the event.
Make-up artist Nabilla Nordin, more popularly known as Warnabilla, said Relatable was a great effort to normalise being young and divorced since the panel had opened up the issue in-depth.
“I feel that this is such a great effort to normalise being young and divorced because I feel like there is still stigma around being a divorcee.
“A lot of people choose to not get a divorce because they don’t want to go through the difficult conversation of being a divorcee.
“I really enjoy and appreciate shows like this where they make it very open and normalised,” she added.
