The Penans suffer in silence

By Ken Vin Lek - Free Malaysia Today,


ULU BARAM: The indigenous people known as Penans who inhabit this remote area in Sarawak have been subjected to sexual abuse by foreign labour (notably loggers), assault, abduction, forced marriages, domestic violence and on-going harassment.
The Penans are part of the Orang Ulu, consisting of Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit and several smaller groups who together make up 5.9% of the state’s population. These people live in rural and forested areas, relying on subsistence agriculture, small-scale farming, fishing, and hunting-gathering for food.
The situation relating to the Penan, especially the women, is seen by many as the trickling effects from the effort made by the state government to pursue a development strategy predicated on economic growth concomitant with urbanisation and industrialisation over the years.
As part of their “development” path, the exploitation of forest resources has been high on the state's agenda since at least the mid-1980s. This has first been through logging, but later included land conversion to oil-palm plantations and other large projects, including hydro-electric and tourist development initiatives.
This exploitation has carried critical and severe impact on the lives and culture of indigenous communities like the Penan, with the forests and land on which their culture and livelihoods have depended for generations being concessioned to private companies and destroyed.
What does logging actually have to do with sexual violence?
To put into perspective, these logging activities carried out require labour. These labourers were outsiders, men from different ethnic backgrounds not local to the area.
During their spare time, they stroll out from their logging camps into the villages occupied by the Penan, and as such, lure the women into their clutches, many have no choice but to succumb.
Uneducated and poor, the Penan have no authority to go to except for their chieftain in the village. Logging camp authorities are reported to be generally indifferent to the situation facing the women.
They do not hold their workers accountable when women are brought to the camp or when women were violated on camp premises and in fact, protected their workers in several cases.
In almost all the allegations of sexual violence, there were reports of overt threats, intimidation and/or the use of criminal force and assault and in most cases, the women were deserted when they became pregnant.
This served not only to silence the reporting of the incidents, but further perpetuated the women’s vulnerability to abuse.
New report released
Yesterday, the Penan Support Group (PSG), made up of 36 NGOs, released a report titled “A Wider Context of Sexual Exploitation of Penan Women and Girls in Middle and Ulu Baram, Sarawak” at a function attended by some 50 opposition MPs, NGO representatives, the Malaysian Bar and embassies at Parliament House.
The report reveals the testimony of seven more Penan women who claimed that they were raped or sexually abused.
In September 2009, a report of the National Task Force, set up by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, confirmed that sexual violence and exploitation of Penan women was happening.
The report was submitted to the Cabinet in January 2009 but the ministers sat on it until public pressure led to its publication in September.
Four agencies promised that they would send investigation teams to the area. These were the Sarawak police, the Sarawak Ministry of Social Development and Urbanisation, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam).
This had followed an earlier September 2008 report by the Switzerland-based Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), which itself echoed other reports dating back several years, asking state authorities to investigate similar possible sexual violence and exploitation experienced by Penan communities.
Reports of sexual violence and exploitation of Penan women have been made to the police and other authorities over many years. They include several reports made by the Penan themselves and Suhakam had also notified the Sarawak authorities in 2000 of the need to investigate incidences of sexual violence and exploitation in Ulu Baram.
Despite this, actions to bring the perpetrators to justice and to initiate appropriate actions to protect Penan women from further sexual violence and exploitation continue to disappoint.
Initial promises of an investigation by Suhakam itself also ran out of steam.
In Suhakam’s 2008 Annual Report, the commission claimed that its investigations had to be rescheduled “due to adverse weather conditions,” and noted “a possibility that members of the community would be reluctant to divulge information in view of the massive publicity the cases have generated.”
NGOs also noted their concerns about “the pace of police investigations”, “police allegations (of non-cooperation from NGOs)” and “the lack of a political climate that can restore the trust of the sexual abuse victims in the Malaysian legal system” as hindrance factors to addressing the situation.
Key figures downplay reports
At the same time, key figures in the Sarawak state government have attempted to downplay the reports.
In an article published by the New Straits Times in 2008, Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu, who was also chairman of the steering committee on Penan Affairs, said that it would be a waste of time to investigate the issue.
“I have not heard of such complaints from Penan communal leaders during my many visits to Ulu Baram,” he said.
In the same article, Daud Abdul Rahman, Assistant Minister in the Chief Ministers Office, said: “The reports of the sexual abuse of the Penan are not true.”
Sarawak Minister for Land Development, James Masing, when interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said “They change their stories, when they feel like it. That’s why I say the Penan are very good storytellers.”
The Sarawak police attempted to blame the NGOs for lack of cooperation. They alleged that the NGOs advocating the Penan cause provided “zero cooperation”.
The reason behind the logging
The state government has long been adamant that indigenous people need to be brought into the mainstream of development, and that this mainstream does not need to be adjusted to be sensitive to gender, and that their development strategy is the most apt.
This strategy is epitomised by the allocation of RM13.44 billion under the Ninth Malaysian Plan (2006-2010) for Sarawak’s development programmes, designed to lead to high growth, employment opportunities and the reduction of poverty.
Critics however refute the claim that Sarawak's forestry is sustainable by pointing out that the issuing of logging licences and general management of the timber trade are enmeshed in political patronage and nepotism.
The close relationship between timber companies and the ruling political elite - “timber politics” - has long been acknowledged and many have argued that this has meant that the political will to monitor and enforce the law, to ensure sustainable and legal forestry practices, is fatally compromised.
A 1987 New Straits Times article showed how Sarawak’s Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud froze 25 logging licences of his rivals covering an estimated area of 1.25 million hectares valued between RM9 billion and RM25 billion. The accusations and counter-accusations made it clear that logging licences were used as political favours.
In granting logging or other concessions, the state merely needs to gazette the land in question and provide a 60-day period of objection to those who would be affected.
Whether the affected communities are aware of this seems immaterial. The fact is that the people who are affected often find out about the state’s actions only when the logging companies show up at their doorstep.
By giving lucrative logging concessions to companies without clear, enforceable guidelines designed to ensure the protection and security of communities like the Penan, the government has left such communities completely vulnerable to encroachment, land loss, and the undermining of autonomy and self-sufficiency.
A major consequence of this is a loss of individual and communal confidence, at a time when there is an increasing “invasion” of Penan land and settlements by outsiders.