THE phenomenon of indigenous women like the Penan being violated is not peculiar to Malaysia. Indeed, there are parallels in other countries, including a developed nation like the US. In their 2007 report, Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA, Amnesty International (AI) reported that indigenous women [...]

Updated on 7 June 2010 at 11.20am IT was interesting to see our Malaysian government defending the rule of law and upholding human rights in the international arena recently. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his colleagues condemned the recent Israeli commando-style raid of the flotilla of ships attempting to deliver aid to Gaza, resulting [...]

THE problems the Penan and other indigenous communities face can sometimes seem overwhelming and complicated. In this interview with The Nut Graph conducted via e-mail in late September 2009, Koh Lay Chin speaks to anthropologist Kelvin Egay, whom she met while visiting the Orang Ulu in Sarawak. She asks Egay, who has researched these communities [...]

Penan child EIGHT hours in a four-by-four, and no sleep. One is forced to pay quite a bit of attention to flashing scenes of logging roads outside. These lead to Sarawak’s hinterland where the Penan communities and other indigenous groups live. I had been unable to get a flight on a small plane from Miri [...]

RAPE. Blockades. Native rights denied. Such topics inevitably come up in news about Sarawak’s Penan community, such as the recent highlighting of the rape, sexual harassment and exploitation of Penan girls and women by workers of logging companies. But there are also other less prominent issues that the Penan face day-to-day in their idyllic villages [...]

Penan children (all pics courtesy of Sofiyah Israa) The Penan Support Group (PSG) would like to acknowledge the important role played by the Jawatankuasa Bertindak Peringkat Kebangsaan bagi Menyiasat Dakwaan Penderaan Seksual terhadap Wanita Kaum Penan di Sarawak (the task force) in the mission to ascertain and establish that the reported rapes of Penan women [...]