Rosmah (PM Najib's wife) urged to help Penan rape victims

Rosmah Mansor, the prime minister's wife, has been urged to defend the rights of Penan schoolgirls and women found to have been raped by loggers in Sarawak.

Three Sarawakian women activists, who identified themselves as 'concerned individuals', handed Rosmah a letter during her recent visit to Kuching.

The women approached Rosmah as she sat sharing an official meal with high-ranking women including Empiang Jabu, wife of state deputy chief minister Alfred Jabu.

The letter, and a sheaf of supporting information, was bound with a white ribbon to signify participation in the global campaign to end violence against women. The letter exhorted Rosmah to lend her support to calls from civil society to bring the rapists to justice.

Malaysiakini has learned that the appendices to the letter included shocking and previously undisclosed information regarding the police investigation, which was abandoned with no arrests.

The information sheds new light on the alleged sexual crimes by loggers against Penan girls and women, detailed in the Ministry of Women's explosive report, released last September.

The federal Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development had commissioned a task force in October 2008 to probe claims of sexual assault by loggers against Penan girls. The task force found the allegations to be true.

According to the ministry's report, victims, as young as ten years old, were attacked while hitching rides on logging company vehicles on their way to or from school. The ministry only released its report after eleven months, prompting accusations of a botched cover-up.

Alleged rapist has two other wives

According to the task force, 'Bibi', a young Penan woman from Long Item, reported that a man given the pseudonym 'Johnny' had raped her at least twice, and had claimed her as his 'wife', causing her to bear two children in 2006 and 2008. The alleged assailant was claimed to be a mechanic employed by a logging company operating near 'Bibi's' village.

'Johnny' had told the police and the press that he was 'Bibi's' husband, when in fact no such marriage had ever been registered.

Government records clearly show that 'Johnny' had two other families at the time of the alleged rape and so-called 'marriage' to 'Bibi'.

Even worse, it appears that the police had gone along with 'Johnny's' claims that he was 'Bibi's' husband, and not her rapist, instead of investigating the alleged rape.

Shortly after the ministry's task force had released its findings last September, 'Johnny' accompanied 'Bibi' to make a police report in Long Lama.

She said that she had not, after all, been a rape victim, but had been duped by unidentified NGOs into making a rape report with Bukit Aman and the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.

The Penan Support Group denounced the retraction by 'Bibi' and 'Johnny' as part of an effort by the Sarawak government to "spread disinformation".

The state government, led by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu, has exerted itself to insulate the logging companies from international condemnation of the reported sexual assaults. State officials insist that logging brings development.

Wealthy logging companies have been documented as generous financial contributors to leading political figures and parties in Sarawak.

The state government hastily used 'Bibi's' "retraction" to try to convince Malaysians that the ministry's task force had been 'manipulated' by unidentified NGOs.

This claim drew an angry response from women's groups. The NGOs charged the state government refused to address the abject poverty and sexual abuse suffered by the Penan.

'Johnny' had apparently convinced the police, the Borneo Post and the See Hua Daily News, that he was a caring, dutiful husband to 'Bibi'. In late 2008, docile local newspapers had published portraits of 'Johnny' as a doting father and husband, in an apparent attempt to discredit 'Bibi's' rape report.

Documentated proof

According to the newspapers, 'Johnny' missed his wife and daughters when 'Bibi' had gone to Kuala Lumpur to lodge the rape reports.

The ministry's task force reported that 'Bibi' had first been raped in 2005, after she rejected the assailant's demands to take her as his wife. 'Bibi' told the task force she had refused him because he already had two wives.

The truth is that easily accessible National Registration Department (NRD) records have confirmed 'Johnny' was already married to at least two other women before 'Bibi's' alleged rape.

His marriage was registered to a Chinese woman, now 42, in Sibu in August 1986. Later, he married another Penan woman, now 30.

'Johnny' has three adult children resulting from the first marriage, in 1987, 1988 and 1990, followed by three from the second, with the Penan woman, in 2002, 2004 and 2009. His name is registered as the father on the birth certificates of all six children.

This means that the Penan woman, whom 'Bibi' had described as a second "wife", was carrying 'Johnny's' baby in late 2008, at the time he was claiming to be a dutiful husband to 'Bibi' in the local newspapers.

Instead of investigating 'Johnny' for rape or polygamy, the police threatened to punish the NGOs that had helped 'Bibi' seek refuge from her alleged rapist. The police even indicated it might charge 'Bibi' with making a false police report.

Continued abuse of Penan women

Last September, according to Penan villagers, policemen, together with 'Johnny' visited the home village of another young Penan girl of 18, who had also lodged reports of rape by loggers.

The local villagers say 'Johnny', escorted by the policemen, tried to pressure the other alleged victim to follow them to a police station. They wanted her to make a statement retracting her rape report, in the same manner as 'Bibi'.

However, the alleged victim and her family refused to recant, saying they wanted to protect other girls from sexual abuse in future.

Six weeks after 'Bibi's' retraction, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar announced the police had closed investigations into the loggers' alleged sexual assaults on the Penan, citing a lack of evidence.

These revelations raise legitimate concerns regarding the police investigations into the sexual abuse documented by the ministry's task force. They also highlight the lack of protection afforded to the rape survivors, who had shown great courage in coming forward to publicise their plight.

Malaysiakini and local activists found the above information on the background of one of the alleged rapists readily.

This begs the question: why have the police failed abjectly in their investigations into the sexual attacks on the Penan?

These findings are acutely embarrassing for the state government and the logging companies. They may hope the issue of Penan sexual abuse can be kept from the public eye, but it continues to draw criticism worldwide.

It remains to be seen whether Rosmah Mansor will take a public stand on the rights of these rural Sarawakian girls and women.

article written by KERUAH USIT who is a human rights activist - 'anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia'. This weekly column is an effort to provide a voice for marginalised Malaysians. Courtesy of Malaysiakini