Evading Predators

With the return of a notorious sex offender to Malaysian shores, we look at how rape and the laws concerning it are being upheld in the country.

- Eliza Thomas

In 1992, Malaysian national Selva Kumar Subbiah was arrested in Toronto, Canada. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for 19 counts of sexual assault, 28 counts of administering a drug or noxious substance, 10 counts of various assaults, and a dozen other charges which included extortion. While he was charged for his crimes on some 30 women, it is believed that he could’ve attacked anywhere between 500 to 1,000 women during his time in Canada.

Having served the 24-year sentence in entirety, Subbiah became eligible for mandatory release. Because he was declared a danger to society, the Canadian government refused to grant him refugee status, and chose to instead deport him back to Malaysia. Despite Subbiah being branded an unreformed, high-risk repeat offender by Canadian authorities, Malaysian authorities have said that they can do nothing more than monitor him. This, inevitably, has caused a media frenzy – Malaysians are questioning their safety, and want to know his every move. While monitoring him isn’t compulsory, Subbiah has allegedly agreed to it because he wants to prove that he is truly reformed.

THE DARK RECESSES 

To delve into the psyche of a rapist is to explore one of the darkest realms of the human mind as well as human sexuality. American feminist Susan Brownmiller proposed in her 1975 book Against Our Will that “rape is a crime through which men everywhere control and terrorise women”. This, however, has been questioned by clinical psychologist and author Noam Shpancer, who said in a psychologytoday.com piece: “What this notion did well was to promote the causes of social justice and gender equality. What it did poorly was to explain rape”.