The sexual predators whom we call school administrators
The latest menstrual "period check" scandal is nothing more than control of women and state-sanctioned sexual harassment against them. It has nothing to do with religion or school discipline.
So, how much more of this sexual abuse will the Malay community tolerate? How much more public humiliation and mental torture can the Malay woman accept? Her shoulders may be broad, her patience may be as good as any saint's, and her temper kept in check, but perhaps, the time has come for her to be more proactive and more vocal about the abuses against her peers.
The "period checks" being conducted on schoolgirls to see if they are really menstruating has nothing to do with religion. In Islam, a menstruating woman is not allowed to perform the ritual prayer, nor to fast. The religion does not force checks on people to see what is stopping them from praying. It does not force you to pray if you do not want to. It does not encourage others to pry into your affairs.
All this begs the question, does the perpetrator really know Islam? Or are the perpetrators using religion to play out their sexual fantasies?
Groping to see if the girls are wearing sanitary pads or having their panties checked is nothing more than sexual harassment. Snide comments, such as "Are you desperate for a penis?", were allegedly reserved for the girl who did not use sanitary pads but preferred tampons. Have some Malays lost their self-respect?
Why do we allow sexual predators to run wild in our schools? The chances of them being found out are low and they are probably never punished, even if they are exposed. It has taken 20 years for this scandal to be revealed.
The menstrual period check does not seem to be an isolated incident because the reports came from former pupils from a wide range of schools, races and religions. Both boys and girls were subjected to humiliation. Some boys alleged that their genitals were groped to see if they were hiding mobile phones. The practice continues today.
It is unlikely that officers in the Education Department were oblivious to the workings of the schools. They must have been aware of this abhorrent practice. The ministers may not have been aware of these period checks, but the school heads must. Did they think it was right? If they did, one wonders what sort of other abuses go on under their watch.
Do the teachers who took part in the period checks not realise that they are wrong? If that were the case, how badly educated are our teachers when they cannot differentiate between right and wrong. How well do they understand their religion - Islam?
Are the period checks part of an unwritten SOP, or is something concrete written in the manuals held at the ministry? How widespread is the practice of period checks in government or Mara schools? What about the unregulated tahfiz and religious schools? What other sexual abuses do they get up to?
Institutional abuse
If we had sex education in schools and proper religious education, these things may not have happened. Girls would be better informed. Still, many of these girls realise that it was sexual harassment.
Jim Lim, a Penangite and a former director of social services in a London borough with many years of working with troubled youths, said, "It's unbelievable that any person or any institution could sanction a religious diktat which allows the gathering of evidence by frisking young people.
“This is an institutional abuse of children in public and a crime against young people. (In UK) if girls were to report this to social services, it would be investigated. If it goes on in British establishments, inspectors would come in, close it down if evidence came out. If there is strong evidence, it would become a criminal case. Such practices are not tolerated in Britain. It’s a crime.
The fear and shame of public groping and show of panties force some schoolgirls to break the taboo of prayer whilst menstruating.
One man who condoned period checks tweeted, "How else are you going to check if girls are menstruating or not?" Are period checks a common aspect of Malay family life, in this new era of Islamicisation?
Religious education in schools needs an overhaul. Will the Education and Religious Affairs ministers scrutinise what is being taught? What is the quality of our teachers?
Will the period checks in Malaysian schools be stopped? Will the ministries of Women, Family & Community Development, and Education act immediately to protect our girls? Will the perpetrators be brought to justice?
Why are the ministers silent about the period check? One wonders if anything will come from this latest scandal. When religion is involved, the authorities are impotent.
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.
So, how much more of this sexual abuse will the Malay community tolerate? How much more public humiliation and mental torture can the Malay woman accept? Her shoulders may be broad, her patience may be as good as any saint's, and her temper kept in check, but perhaps, the time has come for her to be more proactive and more vocal about the abuses against her peers.
The "period checks" being conducted on schoolgirls to see if they are really menstruating has nothing to do with religion. In Islam, a menstruating woman is not allowed to perform the ritual prayer, nor to fast. The religion does not force checks on people to see what is stopping them from praying. It does not force you to pray if you do not want to. It does not encourage others to pry into your affairs.
All this begs the question, does the perpetrator really know Islam? Or are the perpetrators using religion to play out their sexual fantasies?
Groping to see if the girls are wearing sanitary pads or having their panties checked is nothing more than sexual harassment. Snide comments, such as "Are you desperate for a penis?", were allegedly reserved for the girl who did not use sanitary pads but preferred tampons. Have some Malays lost their self-respect?
Why do we allow sexual predators to run wild in our schools? The chances of them being found out are low and they are probably never punished, even if they are exposed. It has taken 20 years for this scandal to be revealed.
The menstrual period check does not seem to be an isolated incident because the reports came from former pupils from a wide range of schools, races and religions. Both boys and girls were subjected to humiliation. Some boys alleged that their genitals were groped to see if they were hiding mobile phones. The practice continues today.
It is unlikely that officers in the Education Department were oblivious to the workings of the schools. They must have been aware of this abhorrent practice. The ministers may not have been aware of these period checks, but the school heads must. Did they think it was right? If they did, one wonders what sort of other abuses go on under their watch.
Do the teachers who took part in the period checks not realise that they are wrong? If that were the case, how badly educated are our teachers when they cannot differentiate between right and wrong. How well do they understand their religion - Islam?
Are the period checks part of an unwritten SOP, or is something concrete written in the manuals held at the ministry? How widespread is the practice of period checks in government or Mara schools? What about the unregulated tahfiz and religious schools? What other sexual abuses do they get up to?
Institutional abuse
If we had sex education in schools and proper religious education, these things may not have happened. Girls would be better informed. Still, many of these girls realise that it was sexual harassment.
Jim Lim, a Penangite and a former director of social services in a London borough with many years of working with troubled youths, said, "It's unbelievable that any person or any institution could sanction a religious diktat which allows the gathering of evidence by frisking young people.
“This is an institutional abuse of children in public and a crime against young people. (In UK) if girls were to report this to social services, it would be investigated. If it goes on in British establishments, inspectors would come in, close it down if evidence came out. If there is strong evidence, it would become a criminal case. Such practices are not tolerated in Britain. It’s a crime.
The fear and shame of public groping and show of panties force some schoolgirls to break the taboo of prayer whilst menstruating.
One man who condoned period checks tweeted, "How else are you going to check if girls are menstruating or not?" Are period checks a common aspect of Malay family life, in this new era of Islamicisation?
Religious education in schools needs an overhaul. Will the Education and Religious Affairs ministers scrutinise what is being taught? What is the quality of our teachers?
Will the period checks in Malaysian schools be stopped? Will the ministries of Women, Family & Community Development, and Education act immediately to protect our girls? Will the perpetrators be brought to justice?
Why are the ministers silent about the period check? One wonders if anything will come from this latest scandal. When religion is involved, the authorities are impotent.
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.
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kt notes:
And here's something 'bocor' from my 01 September 2010 post, The 'dirty' business of menstruation?, reproduced in full for your convenient perusal, wakakaka:
~~~~~~~~~ 😁😁😁
Great stuff! As an ignorant male I’ve just learnt a few stuff about menstruation, yup, the women’s period, menstruation, a word that Hishamuddin Tun Hussein didn’t have the guts to lay out in plain language.
From Susan Loone's (now defunct) blog: Fong refuses to contest in the 2008 General Elections – accusing DAP of “development of internal party events in the DAP Perak over the last few years as well as currently” made it “impossible for me to continue serving effectively, efficiently and wholeheartedly. Under such circumstances and in the best interest of all concerned, I have arrived at this unavoidable and difficult decision”.
Our dear Minister, who has a natural flair for putting his foot into his own mouth every time he opens it, had condemned Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching (DAP) as too ‘dirty’ to enter a surau (mind you, at the invitation of the mosque authority) to present some money to her constituency.
Everyone knows what he meant by the label ‘dirty’ though of course we wonder how he (Hishamuddin, scion of an illustrious family) knew Teo was then having her period– no, no, no thank you please, I don’t want to know how Hishamuddin knew.
There seems to be a fascination by UMNO pollies for the subject of menstruation. Do you recall the Bocor-ites? The notorious one-eye arsehole bloke from Jasin and his fellow bocor-ite Bung Mokhtar Radin harassed DAP MP Fong Po Kuan by uttering sexist remarks of the bocor kind in Parliament, which led me to post MP's menstruation mesmerised motherless monkeys [well, Martin Jalleh, guess who's still King of alliteration? wakakaka].
Fong Po Kuan, the fiery 'xiao la jiao' (little chillie padi) MP from Batu Gajah - she left politics in Perak on a note of acrimonious parting where she was said to be at odds with the Ngeh/Nga cousins
From Susan Loone's (now defunct) blog: Fong refuses to contest in the 2008 General Elections – accusing DAP of “development of internal party events in the DAP Perak over the last few years as well as currently” made it “impossible for me to continue serving effectively, efficiently and wholeheartedly. Under such circumstances and in the best interest of all concerned, I have arrived at this unavoidable and difficult decision”.
But after the DAP mollified her (with none other than the Great Leader himself) she stood in Batu Gajah in 2008 and won for a 3rd time with 70.95% of the votes. She left frontline politics after her 3rd term to support her husband (also DAP) in Johor. I miss her.
I then wrote: Both slimy sexist simians did not deny making the unbelievable comments. Sadly, no lady MP from the Barisan Nasional protested against their unparliamentary intrusive insults. [...] But when Fong, the lady directly insulted by those crude crass comments called for a motion under the Standing Order 26 (1P) to refer the two BN MPs to the Committee of Privileges, predictably Speaker Ramli Ngah Talib dismissed the motion.
This was what renowned Malaysian philosopher Dodgee Dimsum 😁 had to say about the DAP insensitivity for making mountains out of ‘puddles’ -
read Apology - A letter to the minister. And do also read my June 2007 post Bocor business - AAB misses the whole point.
As mentioned, menstruation is more commonly referred to as ‘monthly period’. It seems it’s governed by the lunar cycle, which may explain why it makes some UMNO MPs mad (lunatic, you know, from the word ‘lunar’).
Apparently, in Mayan mythology, the Moon Goddess (Po) slept with the Sun, one sizzling hot stud, so they say. When her dad found out about the illicit gambol, he killed her (as usual, like in the case of the ‘baby dumping’ scandal, the bloke got away) - I was assured no stone was thrown during the execution.
The blood she shed was the origin of menstruation. Her blood was considered evil because she was disobedient, not unlike Eve and her predecessor Lilith. But there’s more – Mayan myth has her menstrual blood stored in 13 jars, enough for several generations of Hishamuddin to comment on.
This is the part which Malaysians like – the first jar’s blood was transformed into creatures such as snakes and insects like scorpions, centipedes, and not forgetting UMNO's favourite pets, the tebuans. ‘Twas also the source of the original poison and diseases – we may take it that Malaysia's Jabba the Hutt was created from there. Sorcery was associated with the blood in the first jar – maybe that’s how Hisham knew about Teo’s ‘dirty-ness’?
However, some jars also hold medicinal plants, but I suspect most of these plants are growing in Columbia, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Turkey.
The thirteenth jar is the lunar jar, from which the Moon Goddess was reborn alongside many lunatics who have since been obsessed by the bocor business. Unfortunately most religions consider menstruation and its blood unclean. Chief among these religions are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto-ism and even Jainism. Only Buddhism and Sikhism don’t give a rat’s fart care about menstruation or the consequential blood.
In Theravada Buddhism, menstruation is viewed as "a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less". Guru Nānak condemned the practice of treating women as impure while menstruating – good onya, Guru.
We know that every human being, except those descended from slugs, was born bathed in menstrual blood. Unlike the ‘dirty’ blood which Hisham knew Teo was excreting, corruption, lies and racism are not dirty in Malaysia. Whoever considers racism as ‘dirty’ are racists themselves.
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