[ad_1]
PETALING JAYA: The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) has joined leaders and citizens to express their outrage at the recent allegations of sexual harassment by several women against police officers who stopped them at roadblocks.
“We are disappointed that the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development remained silent until an opposition deputy pressured her to respond to the situation. We are completely dismayed that he turned his office into a studio for a photoshoot in which he modeled Raya’s fashionable clothes, which is an abuse of his position in the public office, ”they said in a statement.
JAG also hoped that the minister and policy makers would take these latest incidents as an urgent call to take sexual harassment seriously and address this issue through comprehensive legislation.
It was also noted that in the alleged incidents of sexual harassment that occurred at roadblocks, the minister had urged all parties to “not question the credibility of the entire institution of the Royal Malaysian Police, which has been sacrificed a lot to guarantee national security ”.
However, JAG added that it was important to note that the last three cases of barricade sexual harassment are part of a series of incidents of sexual violence against women and girls that involved the police in less than a year.
“Last month, a 16-year-old girl was raped by another prisoner while in police custody in a cell in Miri. In April 2020, a police officer was charged with trafficking and sexual exploitation of two Mongolian women who were detained at a roadblock. We are deeply concerned that these incidents indicate a pattern of abuse of power by the police.
“While we do not dispute the role of the police in maintaining national security, we believe that they, as a public institution, along with all other public and private institutions and individual actors, must be held accountable for such violations,” JAG said in your statement.
JAG also noted that it is imperative, particularly in times like now, when the police wield so much power in terms of regulating movement and ensuring compliance with measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, that the integrity and behavior of their personnel be blameless.
They called for recent allegations of sexual harassment to be promptly investigated and that, when charges are filed, they be promptly tried and the results made public.
[ad_2]
