KUALA LUMPUR: Former law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim said efforts to stem sexual abuse of young boys in the country must be intensified.
He said recent reports of sodomy cases involving students at religious schools could be just the tip of the iceberg and only a small part of the horror story.
"Sodomy is now an epidemic. Young boys are traumatised and abused all over the country," he said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
"The King has spoken. Act quickly to save the young boys at the GISBH homes," he said, referring to Global Ikhwan Service and Business Holdings (GISBH) which is now the focus of police investigations after raids were conducted on 20 welfare homes allegedly linked to the group.
The raids on Sept 11 saw 402 minors, some as young as one rescued.
The rescued children, police say, showed signs of child grooming, child abuse, neglect, child labour and malnutrition after health screenings were conducted.
Zaid also listed past cases of sodomy reported nationwide from 2017 until now. He referenced eleven cases in Perak (in 2017), a case involving the principal against nine students at the Kepong Tahfiz School in 2018, and a 2019 case where a Tahfiz school warden was charged with sodomising five students in Perlis.
In the same year (2019), he added, a school teacher in Kuantan was charged with 38 counts of sodomising young boys, with another school teacher in Lawas, Sarawak, charged with sodomising two students and molesting three others.
He also cited more reported cases from 2022 involving a 13-year-old boy who was sodomised by his seniors for over two years, a 2023 case in Johor Baru involving a religious teacher who was charged for sodomising his students, and this year, where a headmaster at a Tahfiz School in Kelantan was charged for sodomising three students.
Zaid proposed three urgent steps for the government to take, starting with placing detectives or officers from the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) at all religious and Tahfiz schools.
He also suggested Jakim spend some of the RM1.5 billion allocated to it to curb the sodomy epidemic by telling Muslims that Islam views the offence seriously.
He added that Shariah Courts must also step up prosecution of cases of sodomy on young boys by using the Law of Evidence and not depend on four male witnesses.
"How many sodomy cases have they started to prosecute? None," he said, adding politicians entrusted to protect the honour and dignity of Islam must act before it's too late.
He added that parents too must be told to be selective in selecting the religious /Tahfiz schools they wish to send their sons as not all men who teach religion are good.