WOMEN’S rights activist Meera Samanther left legal practice in 1995, thinking she would have a short break after a difficult pregnancy. “I thought I would volunteer for a while, do some charity work,” she tells The Nut Graph. She started helping at the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO)’s shelter and ended up becoming its president, actively advocating for [...]

THE recent announcement by Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam that Muslim children in the state will be allowed to marry just boggles the mind. According to Ali Rustam, who is also Malacca Islamic Religious Council chairperson, allowing child marriages will help curb teenage pregnancy and baby dumping, and prevent pregnant teenagers from [...]

BINA Ramanand and Asha Lim are just two among what is believed to be many more with a predicament because they live in Malaysia. They are foreign spouses married to Malaysians who have waited years and in some cases, decades, for their permanent residency (PR) applications to be approved. As of June 2010, the Home [...]

BUKIT Mertajam Member of Parliament Chong Eng bucked some traditions in her younger days. Coming from a Chinese new village, she was the first girl in her family who managed to persuade her father to let her continue secondary school. Her interracial marriage later on was also considered uncommon, given her background. Born in 1957 [...]

Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard To get her poor doggie a bone But when she got there The cupboard was bare So her poor little doggie had none – Old nursery rhyme The Women’s Candidacy Initiative (WCI) notes that each time elections come around, whether it is parliamentary, state or by-elections, parties fielding [...]

WHEN it comes to international human rights obligations, the Malaysian government has behaved like a faithless lover: making promises to the world it never intended to keep. The banning of Sisters in Islam (SIS)’s book Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism, which is now being judicially reviewed in court, is a demonstration of [...]