Orang Asli girls turning to PROSTITUTION 'out of desperation’

CAMERON HIGHLANDS - Orang Asli girls prostituting to foreign workers were acts done out of desperation, said Cameron Highlands Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) secretary-general B. Suresh Kumar.

The problem had been ongoing for many years and the socialist political party had tried to persuade the Orang Asli community to speak up and lodge police reports.

However, the Orang Asli parents and their daughters had stayed silent as the families needed the income from prostitution, Suresh claimed, adding that they were also driven to silence by shame and fear.

The silence encouraged more foreign workers to ask for Orang Asli girls because the chances that it might create problems, such as prosecution by the authorities, were almost non-existent, he said.

The remoteness of some villages also meant that there was little risk for prostitutes and clients.

Suresh was commenting on recent reports in the media that Orang Asli girls in Cameron Highlands have become sex victims of foreign workers, with some Orang Asli girls becoming pregnant and resorting to abortions.

“I do not think any parents would willingly sell their own daughters and expose the girls to sexual abuse, but what can they do?

“Orang Asli are vulnerable to exploitation because large areas of forests are destroyed or degraded by land-seeking farmers, development projects and logging.

“This means the land’s indigenous people are faced an ever diminishing resource base,” he told The Rakyat Post.

Among the valuable functions and products provided to Orang Asli by tropical forests are food, water, medicine, wood and forest products.

“In some cases, villages were combined when they move into areas occupied by other groups, straining the area’s resources.

“In other cases, they are forced to relocate outside of forests which permanently alter their previous way of life in a subsistence-oriented economy,” said Suresh.

He added that Orang Asli are often suppressed in wages and paid as low as RM20 a day doing decent jobs such as hotel receptionist, cleaner or waitress.

They are also expected to work seven days a week.

“Orang Asli may have a simple livelihood, but they also have families and need time off.

“For this reason, they had been indiscriminately labelled ‘unreliable’ and ‘lazy’,” he said.

There have also been rumours that babies are born without documentations.

Suresh noted that while it was impossible to pin down how many Orang Asli girls were now working as prostitutes, the social ill was inescapable.

He said the government must take responsibility for failing to ensure that the rights of the Orang Asli to their lands were recognised.

“The government failed to help Orang Asli utilise their intimate knowledge of the area’s resources such as the available species of plants and animals and how to manage them.

“The government had also failed to monitor the extensive problem of converting forest areas for agriculture, both legal and illegal,” he said. - http://www.therakyatpost.com/