Penan Women/girl

v. Sexual abuse against Penan women by workers of logging companies

As the Penan communities have been struggling to prevent destruction of their ancestral lands by logging firms, their womenfolk are being victimised by timber company workers in the various settlements within the companies’ operation areas. In particular, there have been allegations that the Penan women including schoolgirls in the Middle Baram area of Sarawak were sexually abused “on a regular basis” by the workers hired by Malaysian logging companies Interhill and Samling. Swiss-based NGO, Bruno Manser Fund, which conducted a research on the sexual violence against the Penan women, alleged that the company workers based in logging camps usually frequented, in a drunken condition, in the Penan settlements looking for women. The Penan women were so terrified that they fled into the forests when they heard sound of vehicles approaching. The situation becomes the worst during the school holidays when students return home to spend their vacation.[16]

The young school girls have been more vulnerable to sexual abuse by the company workers who would take advantage of the disadvantaged positions of the Penans. As the schools are far away from the Penan villages, the schoolchildren have to either walk for several hours or take vehicles to reach the schools. But the Penans are poor and cannot afford vehicles for their children. Hence, they depended on the companies’ vehicles to ferry their children to schools. The Penan girls have become vulnerable as the company workers would often arranged the transportation in such a way that schoolgirls had to stay overnight at a logging camp, where they were abused. Bruno Manser Fund further reported that there had been several incidents of pregnancy among the Penan women and girls due to the abuses and that the logging workers also carried arms to intimidate the Penan community.[17] In 2007, a 16-year-old student from Long Kawi, a settlement in the Middle Baram, became pregnant after being raped while returning to her boarding school. The victim was raped in the logging camp when taking transportation provided by companies to go to her school SMK Long Lama.[18]

On 6 October 2008, The Star reported that “interviews conducted in settlements in the Middle Baram area in northern Sarawak, revealed that several students had become victims of rapes by logging workers.[19]
No perpetrator has been brought to justice. The Penan community leaders alleged that while complaints to the company managers did not work, the police also failed to take any action against the perpetrators. In October 2008, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development has reportedly set up a task force to investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Penan women and girls in Sarawak.[20] The Royal Malaysian Police is presently investigating into alleged cases of sexual abuse.

But there is little international concern over the continuous struggle waged by the indigenous peoples of Sarawak for survival as a result of exploitation of the indigenous peoples and their resources by the logging companies and other business enterprises in the state of Sarawak. The lack of insensitivity has been poignantly demonstrated by England when it recently conferred honorary Knighthood to Tiong Hiew King, the founder of the Rimbunan Hijau Group which has been responsible for destruction of the livelihood of the Penans in Sarawak by its logging activities.