The minimum penalty for incest should be increased beyond the minimum five years jail sentence now prescribed for rape, said Sisters in Islam (SIS) today.

The group comprising Muslim women activists said that stiffer punishment is needed given the gravity of the crime and society's abhorrence of incest.

"The fathers who commit incest must also undergo compulsory counselling to prevent them from committing the crime again upon their release into the same household as their victims," said SIS executive director Zainah Anwar.

Hence, she welcomed the proposal by the Court of Appeal Judge Shaik Daud Ismail that there should be a special provision in the Penal Code for the crime of incest.

Currently there is no provision in the Penal Code for incest and all prosecutions on the matter are done under rape laws.

Zainah also urged the government to form a committee that should include women's groups and other non-governmental organisations to review the areas of conflict between the Penal Code and Syariah criminal offences legislation.

Zainah said that incest is punishable under the Syariah criminal offences yet the same crime is considered by the Constitution as a federal matter.

This overlapping area of jurisdiction means Muslim men who have raped their own daughters can be charged for incest under the Syariah law where the maximum punishment is only two years imprisonment and a RM3,000 fine, she said.

"This punishment does not reflect the reprehensible nature of the crime and society's revulsion of such a crime," Zainah said.

Teen charged

She pointed out that in a Kelantan case early last year, both the father and his 17-year-old daughter were charged for incest under the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code.

The cause of justice would have been better served if the father was charged with rape under the Penal Code where he would be liable to imprisonment for not less than five years and not more than 20 years, she said.

Instead the 36-year-old father was only jailed for two years, fined a total of RM4,000 and given two strokes of the rotan when he pleaded guilty to charges of incest and preliminaries to adultery ( mukaddimah zina ).

SIS also expressed its concern on the prosecution for incest of the daughter, considered a minor under civil law, but regarded as an adult under Syariah law.

The daughter who had initially pleaded not guilty changed her plea later. The court bound her over to be of good behaviour for one year with her mother standing surety. When her mother failed to post the bond of RM1,000, the girl was sentenced by the court and committed to a rehabilitation home for one year.

"That the Syariah prosecutors regarded the girl as a willing partner in the commission of the crime and therefore an offender, rather than a victim, was totally against the grain of justice," Zainah said.