Emergency motion on Penan rapes, native rights
Parti Keadilan Rakyat is planning to table an emergency motion to the Dewan Rakyat next week to discuss the reported rape of Penan women by loggers and the plight of the indigenous communities in the country.
Parti Keadilan Rakyat is planning to table an emergency motion to the Dewan Rakyat next week to discuss the reported rape of Penan women by loggers and the plight of the indigenous communities in the country.
A notice informing the House speaker of the motion will be filed on Monday, while they hoped that the motion will be tabled the following day.
"However I expect that this motion will be rejected by the Dewan," said Ampang parliamentarian Zuraida Kamaruddin (left) when informing reporters about the impending move in Parliament today.
This follows months of silence by the government on the reported rape of the Penan women by logging company employees, despite a damning report confirming incidents of rape made by a Women, Welfare and Community Development Ministry task force in October last year.
The Penan Support Group, an NGO which is fighting for the plight of the alleged rape victims, today unveiled an independent report titled "A Wider Context of Sexual Exploitation of Penan Women and Girls in Middle and Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia" to opposition MPs and the media earlier today (photos below).
The report, which was the result of the NGO's own fact-finding mission, in conjunction with Forum-Asia and the Asian Indigenous Women's Network (AIWN), revealed that the actual extent of the alleged sexual exploitation of the Penan women and girls is more widespread and systematic than was previously thought.
The problem, the fact-finding mission found, was endemic to the Middle and Ulu Baram regions whereby logging companies continue to exploit the local Penan communities, maintaining their grip by controlling the Penans' access to basic needs, in blatant disregard of the rights of the Penans.
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uraida's scepticism towards the motion making it to debate is due to past experience as the opposition's recent attempt to table several emergency motions to discuss issues which they consider to be of public interest, have been rejected several times.
These include the emergency motions to condemn the Israeli attack on aid convoys to Gaza and to discuss the imminent hanging of Malaysian Wong Vui Keong in Singapore after being convicted for drug trafficking.
