Government urged to release findings on sexual abuse of Penan women
April 22, 2009
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Women’s and Indigenous peoples’ groups have urged the Malaysian government to release the findings of its investigation into claims that Penan women have been sexually abused by loggers operating on their land.
The allegations that loggers from the companies Samling and Interhill had raped and harassed Penan women, including schoolgirls, were publicised in September by the organization Bruno Manser Fund.
A task force was commissioned in October by the Women, Family and Community Development Minister to investigate the claims. But its findings have been kept secret, despite five months having passed since it completed its mission.
‘So long as the report is not shared with the public, the Penan community continues to become more vulnerable,’ the director of the Malaysian Women’s Aid Organisation, Ivy Josiah, told the news website Nutgraph.
The Penan are fighting to stop logging, oil palm plantations and hydroelectric dams destroying the forests they depend on.
