KUALA LUMPUR – After public criticism by the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP), the All Women’s Action Society (Awam) has invited secretary-general Wang Heng Suan for a discussion on a recent survey.
Awam said the invitation is to ensure Wang has an accurate idea of the survey’s findings and implications.
“We are also open to working with NUTP to provide training on sexual harassment awareness and prevention for the purpose of empowering teachers to be more capable in handling sexual harassment and creating sexual harassment-free school spaces for all students in Malaysia,” it said in a statement today.
The study conducted by Awam and the Centre for Governance and Political Studies aimed to show that there is a systemic culture of sexual harassment in the country, to the point that women do not feel safe in public places.
Awam said it heeded the scientific benchmark of 1,000 respondents for survey samples that are representative of the population studied.
“The sample size provided an adequate representation of the 16 million sub-population of Malaysian women, in light of a confidence level of 95% and a margin error of 3%.
“We would also like to clarify that our preliminary survey targeted Malaysian women specifically from 18 to 30 years old, and not the entire Malaysian population, hence the quoted percentage of 0.003% is inaccurate.”
It said the survey results do not state that 44% of teachers make sexually provocative jokes, but that 44% of those surveyed have witnessed such jokes being made by teachers.
“The survey sampled women aged 18 to 30 years old, not teachers. Those are two very different things, with different sample sizes and population sizes.”
The goal is not to tarnish the reputation of any particular group, but to highlight sexual harassment cases that are happening and not dealt with properly, said the group.
Earlier, Free Malaysia Today reported that Wang dismissed the findings, saying the survey is inaccurate given that it saw only 1,056 participants.
He also said it is “unfair and irresponsible” as the participants represent only 0.003% of the population, adding that the results would have been different if the number of respondents was higher. – The Vibes, September 25, 2021
