The adoptive parents of a 15-year-old girl have urged the public prosecutor to review the acquittal of a man who was charged with her statutory rape.
The parents travelled to Kuching from Selangau on Tuesday to personally seek the help of the state Attorney-General Chambers office representatives, reported Sin Chew Daily today.
The parents, Abdul Bakar and Rosmiathy, urged the prosecutor to seek a review of the man's acquittal at the Federal Court.
They pointed out that the trauma of the incident has changed their daughter with her now cropping her hair short and refusing to wear skirts.
Bunya Jalong, 60, was acquitted on May 7 after the Court of Appeal sitting in Sibu ruled that since he had used his smen-smeared fingers to penetrate his victim, the act couldn't be considered as rape under the law which stipulated it as a penis forcibly entering a vagina.
The judgement has shocked the nation with calls for the public prosecutor to seek a review and to also amend the law relating to rape .
News reports detailed how the retired civil servant had been entrusted to ferry the girl from school but instead had sexual relations with her to the extent of making her pregnant.
The girl, then aged 15 and four months, delivered a child at the Sibu Hospital on Feb 5, 2012.
Definition 'too narrow'
The Sessions Court had initially sentenced Bunya to 42 years in jail, 11 strokes of rotan and a fine of RM40,000 but this was unanimously overturned by a bench of three judges at the Court of Appeal.
Meanwhile, All Women's Action Society Malaysia (Awam) president Ho Yoke Lin said the definition of rape under the Penal Code was too narrow.
"Women organisations have been urging the government to expand the definition of rape for over two decades now following the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in the 1980s," she was quoted as saying by Sin Chew Daily .
The government, however, had all along opined that the current law was enough to deal with such cases, she said.
"All quarters should now pressure the government to amend current laws dealing with rape," she said.
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