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Seksualiti Merdeka, an annual sexuality rights festival held at the Central Market Annexe, conducted a forum on 15 August 2009 entitled “The Law & Our Bodies”.  Happening for its second year, Seksualiti Merdeka aims to affirm sexuality rights as human rights, empower individuals and communities regardless of their sexualities, and to create platforms for advocacy of sexuality rights.

The forum took off at 6:00pm.  There were three panel speakers from the Bar Council Human Rights Committee – Simranjit Kaur Gill, Lim Kar Mern and Aston Philip Paiva. The forum was moderated by Honey Tan.  Simranjit started off her session with a simple test.  She posed the question whether anyone knows and/or has experienced rape and/or has been molested.  She then spoke extensively on the laws that govern sexuality and sexual violence prevention and she expressly indicated that enforcement of the law would not be discussed in this forum as it is entirely another issue.  The audience was informed on the new Section 375A of the Penal Code and comparisons were made with regard to rape involving single women and married women.  She ended her topic by bringing the audience’s attention to the DNA Identification Bill in which one of the disadvantages is that intimate and non-intimate samples of an individual’s DNA can be taken.

Kar Mern, the second speaker, focused her session on the topic of so-called unnatural offences in the Penal Code.  One of the audience members posed an interesting question as to whether a person’s finger is an “object” for the purposes of the provision criminalising “sexual connection by object”.  Honey Tan explained and elaborated that the concept of unnatural offences are inherited from common law that originated from Christianity.

The last speaker, Aston, talked about the issue of dressing.  He presented his analysis of the liberal and conservative ways of dressing of an individual and in a society in general.  He drew the audience’s attention to Article 10 of our Federal Constitution, relating to the freedom of expression, and he was of the view that expression would include the right to dress as it is a form of “gesture”.  However, he explained that there are restrictions imposed in Article 10(2) of the Federal Constitution as to the right of expression in the interests of public order and morality.

Audience participation was lively during the discussion session. Audience members voiced their views and opinions, as well as shared their concerns.  It is pertinent to note that the audience was very concerned about the enforcement of the law protecting sexuality rights.  Further, the issue of whether the Syariah Court or the civil court has the jurisdiction over some particular matters was also discussed.  With that, the forum ended at 8:00pm.