PETALING JAYA: There is a serious problem among Malaysians on their attitudes and perceptions towards violence that has yet to be tackled or addressed effectively, shows a survey.

       The results of a survey by Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) indicated a critical need for rethinking and strengthening the approach to prevention strategies for violence against women (VAW).

       The WAO recently conducted a survey among 1,000 Malaysian men and women to understand their attitudes and perceptions towards violence against women as well as the impact of such attitudes on survivors through 16 in-depth interviews with survivors.

       Titled “A Study on Malaysian Public Attitudes and Perceptions towards VAW”, it was found that only approximately half of Malaysians are likely to oppose violence-endorsing attitudes and support gender equality.

       In a sharing session by Isabel Chung, Anis Farid and Shazana Agha, they said that the most concerning attitudes and perceptions likely to be held by Malaysians are undermining women’s independence and decision making in private life with 48% negative responses.

       “There is a disconnect between the respondent's ability to identify violence when it is described and how it looks in our everyday lives.

       “Some 96.5% of participants were able to recognise physical violence and 84.4% recognised non-physical violence.

       “Findings from other domains and questions indicate that the understanding may be superficial.

       “There is a disconnect between knowledge and practice as 41.8% of respondents exhibit attitudes that excuse perpetrators for violence or are complicit towards it.

       “Some 53.3% respondents believe that domestic violence is a normal reaction to everyday stress and frustration; 43% of the respondents think that sometimes a woman can make a man so angry that he hits her when he didn't mean to and 30% believe that women who flirt all the time are somewhat to be blamed if their partner gets jealous and hits them,” they shared.

       WAO further revealed that 37.1% respondents believe that leaving an abusive relationship is not as hard for people as it is and 44.9% think that female victims who stay with their abusive partners are responsible for the ongoing abuse.

       “This suggests that an understanding of what constitutes VAW does not necessarily include an understanding of the inherent and unequal power relations between perpetrators and survivors or a consciousness of rape myths, victim-blaming tendencies and the injustice that it perpetuates against survivors.

       “There is also a complicity towards distrusting women’s reports of violence as 23.6% of the respondents agree that women who are fighting for child custody tend to create or exaggerate domestic abuse allegations to help their case,” the survey revealed.

       It is also found that the reach of existing public messaging is highest for domestic violence and sexual harassment whereby the existing public messaging that were found on television, Facebook and newspapers receive the highest recall.

       The survey also showed that there was a high tendency in Malaysians to disregard women’s right to consent.

       “Rape myths are pervasive and over 80% of the respondents believe that rape happens because men are not able to control their sexual desires.

       “Malaysians tend to deny that gender inequality is a problem as 30.9% Malaysians think that many women exaggerate how unequally they are treated in Malaysia whereas there are 23.8% Malaysians who think that discrimination against women is no longer a problem in workplaces.

       “Malaysians tend to undermine women in everyday life as more than 50% of Malaysians support the idea that men should control the relationship and become the head of the family and some women prefer a man to be in charge of the relationship.

       “Over 70.3% respondents oppose child marriage.

       “Malaysians are likely to first seek help from the police following incidences of domestic violence and sexual harassment, but the help sought from primary health clinics and hospitals was low," the report also added.

       Meanwhile, WAO recommendeded that a comprehensive prevention strategy be adopted to achieve a wider reach and impactful results.

       “We should work towards collective action, rather than isolated initiatives. We should also target men and women across the social ecology in terms of individual, interpersonal, community and societal.

       “A review of evidence should be conducted based on approaches and interventions that could work within Malaysia.

       “Prevention programmes should actively challenge underlying violence-endorsing attitudes and societal norms.

       “The government should also conduct public attitude surveys toward VAW every few years to track progression and regression of Malaysian attitudes,” they shared.