KUALA LUMPUR – The All Women’s Action Society (Awam) is calling on the Health Ministry (MoH) to ensure its staff, especially content creators for the MyHealth portal, undergo sensitivity training.
This comes after articles on the ministry’s portal that displayed insensitivity towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and women.
“Awam is happy to act as a training provider for these relevant parties at MoH, as we are already providing training on sexual harassment redress, and prevention and awareness programmes for both the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and the Youth and Sports Ministry,” said the civil society group in a statement last night.
The articles, which have since been deleted after they were highlighted on social media, assigned blame for sexual harassment to women, and provided simplistic assertions concerning the causes of homosexuality among women.
Awam said the MyHealth portal has a quality assurance policy, specifying the appointment of qualified medical professionals as content writers.
However, given the inaccurate statements made by such professionals against sexual harassment survivors and homosexuals, Awam accused the ministry of breaching its own information quality standards.
Furthermore, the health director-general’s disclaimer that the article reflects the author’s, and not MoH’s, opinions seems to miss the mark, considering MoH’s social responsibility in shaping public attitudes towards social issues.
“Social inequalities are inextricably linked to health, whereby experiences of systematic discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion are linked to poor physical and mental health outcomes.”
The article titled Emotional Impact on Sexual Harassment Victims was last reviewed on January 5, 2016.
The write-up listed several factors that could lead to sexual harassment, including a “sexy and attractive body shape”, and how women dress.
“Unrestricted social interactions are also one of the sources that provoke men to commit sexual harassment,” said the article.
“In this modern era of globalisation, there are no restrictions for men and women to intermingle. As a result, certain parties will take advantage to commit sexual harassment.” – The Vibes, April 17, 2021
