The country was rocked when the news from Sabah came in May: a 40-year-old man had been charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. That alone would have been horrific enough. Then it emerged that the alleged rapist, Riduan Masmud, went on to take the victim as his second wife in exchange for the dropping of charges, complete with her parents’ and his first wife’s consent.
The outrage since then has been palpable and brought up tough questions on the legality of child marriage in Malaysia. Last month, the Penang Institute hosted a forum on "Protecting Our Children: Evaluating Statutory Rape" at Wawasan Open University to evaluate the legal and social framework surrounding child marriage. Just before the forum, Penang Monthly caught up with two of the speakers, former president of the Malaysian Bar Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and Sisters in Islam executive director Ratnawati Osman to get their views on how child marriage and statutory rape are dealt with in both civil law and the Syariah.
"This is a problem that's not only happening in Malaysia. According to the UN, 39,000 underage girls throughout the world are married every day."
JEFFREY HARDY QUAH: When I first heard about this case, my initial reaction was: it’s 2013, how can this still happen? Except that it’s been happening for a while, hasn’t it?
