Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan is shocked and disappointed by BN's Tasek Gelugor MP Shabudin Yahaya's statement urging underaged marriages and marriages between a rapist and the victim.

"Every child has the right to live, to dream and to have fun.

"While it is the parents' responsibility to provide a decent childhood for their children, the government and lawmakers have the responsibility to protect the best interest of Malaysian children," Rahman said in a Facebook posting last night.

Laws are enacted to protect children, especially underaged girls, he said, citing Section 375(g) of the Penal Code where it is considered statutory rape for a man to have sex with a girl under 16 years of age, with or without her consent.

"Therefore, it is abhorrent in this 21st Century to suggest that a rapist - who should in the first place be prosecuted - has the means to escape legal responsibility simply by marrying his victim," he said.

Yesterday, Umno's Shabudin told the Dewan Rakyat that marriage between a rape victim and the rapist was a possible remedy for social problems.

Such a marriage, he said, may even lead to the rapist repenting and it would be good for the victim to have a husband.

He had also said that 12-year-old girls are not too young to be wed, adding that girls who reached puberty as young as nine years old were physically and spiritually ready for marriage.

"When we discuss 12- and 15-year-olds, we don't see their physical bodies, because for some children aged 12 or 15, their bodies are like 18-year-old women.

"So it's not impossible for them to get married," Shabudin had said.

Meanwhile, MCA Wanita chief Heng Seai Kie said Shabudin's outrageous remark was his personal view and does not represent BN. 

"He must explain how manipulating and sexually defiling a minor child, be it consensual or not, is not a 'social problem', nor a wild lifestyle'," she said in a statement today. 

"Why blame the pre-teen or adolescent girl and not the men who are unable to contain their sex drive? 

"These are pathetic yet typical chauvinism which MCA Wanita and other women NGOs face an uphill battle against, in attempting to educate and change obsolete mindsets to one which respects women’s dignity," she added.

Citing reports that child brides in the Middle East and Africa die on their wedding night due to internal injuries perpetrated by the groom, she urged Shabudin to show emperical evidence that a 9-year-old who has been sexually violated, is spiritually ready for nuptials.

"Does she have the mental capacity and maturity for pregnancy and motherhood although she may appear physically older than her age? Will her body be able to withstand the physical penetration by a grown man?" she asked. 

She asked if Shabudin proposes a father marry his daughter after raping her. 

"His suggestion is as good as killing the  Sexual Offences Against Children (bill) and feeding into the fetish of depraved sex perverts, as it will open the floodgates for paedophiles to rape a higher number of minor girls and boys," she added.

Heng, who is also an advisor in the Prime Minister's Department (National Unity and Integration), advised the Tasik Gelugor MP to stay mum if he had nothing positive to say. 

"With such comments and mentality, he has shamed our Parliament and the entire nation, causing us to become a laughing stock globally."