Act against false sexual offence claims, including sodomy: Lecturer

PETALING JAYA: The government is urged to introduce a sexual harassment legislation to protect individuals from false accusation of sexual harassment or violence, including sodomy.

False sexual offence allegations can cause serious impact on the individuals accused, his career, and his relationship with his family and with society, a senior law lecturer said today.
"Unlike other crimes, the impact of false or unfounded sexual offence allegation is also long-lasting and often effect severely the life and reputation of the person being accused even though such person being accused is found not guilty," Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) said in a statement today.
"This is due to deep hatred and repulsion by majority towards sexual offences. In all crimes, especially in sexual offences cases, every allegation made towards any individual must be supported with strong evidence and cannot be made based on weak evidence, rumour or hearsay.
"Though we have several options under the existing laws in the country like the Penal Code (Act 574) along with all the civil actions which might be taken against the accuser for any false allegation or unsupported sexual offences allegation being made, it is still not strong enough to deal with the issue in the country."
Sexual harassment is not only confined to small acts of harassment like sexually harassing through words or contact, but it could also involve high level of harassment which involve physical sexual attack on the victim, Muzaffar said.
Sexual harassment law has been proposed for nearly 20 years by several non - governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country. The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) which consists of various NGOs group in the country has been campaigning for specific legislation of sexual harassment.
In 2001, JAG submitted a draft of a proposed sexual harassment bill in the hope that the government would take concrete action against such serious offences.
Besides having many provisions prohibiting sexual harassment and sexual violence in the proposed sexual harassment bill, it includes a clear warning against any false accusation.
Inside the proposed sexual harassment bill, it has clearly stipulated under Section 67 that "A person giving any information under this Bill must not (a) make any statement knowing it to be false or misleading, or (b) omit any matter from a statement knowing that without that matter the statement is misleading".