"I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for `Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.)"
Too recently, I was called in to do a psychiatric evaluation of 12-year-old Malay Muslim girl who had sexual intercourse with her 23-year-old male cousin. I was told by the referring doctor and the girl's mother that the whole affair was consensual, to which I snarkily replied: "I didn't know 12-year-olds can consent to sex."
If I didn't transmute my anger into sarcasm, I fear I might just hit somebody. After asking a few gentle questions, I learned that the girl knew nothing about sex (beyond a few dirty words boys in her school inserted into her vocabulary) or even that intercourse can result in a pregnancy. She also said she didn't enjoy the act and that it hurt every single time, but had chose to bear it for her amorous cousin's sake. Her parents did not make a police report because it never even occurred to them that what happened to their naïve preteen was rape most foul. If anything, they were angry at the girl for squandering her chastity. To my exasperation, we actually had to force her parents to alert the authorities, threatening to do so ourselves if they don't.
The law assumes that a person would have to reach a certain age before they are considered competent enough to do certain things: like drive a car, buy booze, vote, or consent to sex and marriage. The age however, differs from country to country and we can debate till the universe collapse about the optimum age at which an individual reaches the requisite level of maturity to say yes to boning, but let's not. In Malaysia, a person can consent to sex at 16. Statutory rape is a simple enough concept. It is rape - period - if anyone has sex with a boy or girl who is below 16, no matter how desperately he or she is asking for it.
That also means that in Malaysia, the law thinks that you are capable of making life decisions as important as who you want to be married to before you can even drive a car (that's 17).
But wait! According to Act 303, Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) ACT, 1984, there's a little something extra:
No marriage may be solemnized under this Act when either the man is under the age of eighteen or the woman is under the age of sixteen except where the Syariah Judge has granted his permission in writing in certain circumstances.
What this basically means is, you can marry an underage girl (or boy) so long as a Syariah long-beard gives you the okay. Only Muslims in Malaysia are privileged with this special exclusive dispensation (so no legal underage vaginas for the likes of atheists like me). We Malaysians were most recently re-acquainted with this legal peculiarity by that incident in Sabah last year where a 40-year-old restaurant manager raped a 13-year-old schoolgirl in his car. To avoid the legal repercussions of child-fucking, he petitioned to marry his rape victim as his second wife at the Syariah Court - which approved it.
I guess this is one of those "certain circumstances" that the Syariah Court permits. Child rapists can marry their underage rape victims and then continue to legally fuck them forever? Halal!
Our regular court (not guided by the shining wisdom of Allah) however, sentenced the child rapist to 12 years of prison and 2 lashes of the rotan so when he is expected to come out of the slammer, his new bride would finally be of age.
Sorry, everything I've written so far is just a (crucial) preamble to what I actually intend to talk about so bear with me. Yesterday, our Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, when confronted with statistics that showed that Malay Muslims in this country are disproportionately involved in statutory rape cases, said,
"Maybe the non-Malays are not as sensitive about it, which is why not many people come forward to make reports."
He further said,
"Statistics showed that the reports by Malays were higher than those from the other communities, as the Malay Muslim community could not accept children born out of wedlock, which is against Islam."
Call me crazy but I don't think that's it, Junaidi dear.
He is essentially implying that other races have a more cavalier and accepting attitude towards child rape, hence the purported under-reporting - which I think is ass-backwards because if under-reporting is indeed the case, it makes more sense to say that it is due to Chinese, Indians and other races being more sensitive and ashamed of child rape. Not to mention that Junaidi was also, in a way, claiming that Islam is morally superior to other faiths. In more civilised countries, saying what he said was tantamount to political suicide but in Malaysia, it's just Tuesday.
Also, I find it terrifying that "children born out of wedlock" is the primary concern of the Malay Muslim community when addressing the issue of statutory rape - not the fact that freaking children are being preyed upon by predators.
 |
| "B-b-b-but I pulled that right out of my ass!" |
Now, how disproportionate are the numbers?
In 2012 a total of 1,550 statutory rape cases were reported, out of which 1,243 cases involved Malays, 73 Chinese, 45 Indians and 189 from other races.
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| Mmm... child rape pie. |
2013's figures are commensurate with the preceding year's with 1,147 cases out of 1,424 cases involving Malays, 62 Chinese, 32 Indians and 183 others
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| I intentionally chose yellow to represent the Chinese. I'm Chinese so I can do shit like that. |
Malay Muslims make up about 50.4% of the entirety of Malaysia's population but contributes a whopping 80% of the total reported child rape cases in the past two years. That's the huge honking elephant of a discrepancy that Junaidi was racistly trying to explain away from the living room.
Now, why is that? I would like to propose a counter-theory to the one offered by Junaidi.
What I Think is the Explanation (Maybe).
If they want to arrest me for violating blasphemy/sedition laws for writing this, they better arrest Mr Junaidi too - though unlike him, I can actually present some evidence backing up my arguments.
Remember that long introduction earlier where I spoke of Act 303 which effectively said that only Muslims in Malaysia are allowed to marry underage girls and boys (so long as they do so under the auspices of the Syariah Court)? That's all relevant here.
In 2009, 479 girls who underwent pre-marital HIV testing for Muslims were under 15 years old - 32 of them were under 10. In 2012 alone, there were 1,165 applications to the Syariah Court for marriage where one of the parties (usually the bride) were below 16. That's almost as many Malay Muslims who were involved in reported statutory rape cases in that same year. A shocking 1,022 (almost 90%) of the 1,165 petitions were approved so I guess "certain circumstances" must cover a lot of ground where it is okay for someone to marry a child according to our Syariah Court's interpretation of Sunni Islam.
One can maybe even say that there already exists a permissive culture amongst the Malay people in viewing children as potential brides. Ready for marriage and motherhood. Ready for sex.
Maybe, just maybe, this normalisation of child marriage and sex with minors in the Malay Muslim community have something to do with their grossly disproportionate over-representation in statutory rape statistics? Is that far-fetched?
Not that there's anything wrong with child marriage, no sirree! I mean, even the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) married Aishah when she was only 6 years old and consummated their marriage when she was just 9. Clearly all these child marrying business is holy and sacrosanct and falls strictly in line with the highest standards of moral rectitude and cannot ever, ever be questioned, right? After all, as religious people are fond of saying to dirty kuffar like me: all religions are exemplary and teaches only the goodest good.
I wonder if I am going to be asked to talk to any more raped children at work today.
P.S. This post was originally titled "Why Are Most Child Rapists Malay Muslims" but I fear that the Muslim mob might read that as a derogatory statement rather than an accurate description of Malaysian child rape statistics.
Not allowed to marry children
under any circumstances,
k0k s3n w4i
5 comments:
What if the words 'child rapists' be replaced with 'pedophiles'? Wouldn't that be the real issue to worry about, that this country has such stalkers around regardless of their race and religion? And where there are enough pedophiles, there is bound to be child porn, child sex trafficking. Hopefully not as bad as in the Indochina nations.
Note: Many sites accuse our Beloved Holy Prophet, Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, of , God Forbid, marrying a minor. We present here an article that will clear our Beloved Holy Prophet (pbuh) off this blasphemous charge. May Allah guide the opponents of Islam aright, Aameen!]
Most narrations carry misstatements about the age of Hazrat ‘Aishah Siddiqah at the time of her marriage to the Holy Prophet, (peach and blessings of Allah be upon him). They place this marriage in the tenth year of the Call and state that Hazrat ‘Aishah was only 6 years old at that time. On proper sifting of the material facts, these statements turn out to be incorrect and it becomes evident that she, in fact, was about 19 or 20 years of age when she arrived in the house of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as his wife in 2 A.H.
Show me the money. What are the material facts?
Anonymous #1: I don't think that is helpful. Not all paedophiles are child rapists and not all child rapists are paedophiles. Like I've already written, I believe that the child marriage and child rape phenomenon in the Malay Muslim community is caused by the normalisation of viewing children as potential brides and sex partners - not because they have a disproportionately high number of paedophiles in their ranks.
Anonymous #2: As narrated by Aisha in Sunan an-Nasa'i: "The Messenger of Allah married me when I was six, and consummated the marriage with me when I was nine, and I used to play with dolls." Source: http://sunnah.com/nasai/26/183. Now, are you going to substantiate your claim or are you just talking out of your ass like Junaidi?
Anonymous #3: I assume that you directed that at Anonymous #2?
You have opened my eyes. In particular, this part: "I mean, even the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) married Aishah when she was only 6 years old and consummated their marriage when she was just 9."
My past Islamic Studies teachers did note that he married her when she was a minor, but nowhere did they ever mention that he had CONSUMMATED their marriage as well!!
Wow. #TGIF indeed.
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