Empirical analysis of incest in Malaysia: the secret behind the closed doors and protection of incest victims / Muhammad Haziq Zaini

Incest is a worldwide phenomenon that includes the exploitation of family members who are known and trusted by the victims. In today's globalised and modernised society, children are at significant danger of sexual exploitation regardless of where they stay, with whom they stay, or even in their own home. This study seeks to explore the undisclosed stories about incest from the twofold views and the real occurring issues faced by agencies which deals with incestuous cases in Malaysia. This study is based on three objectives in which it comprises the experiences of incestuous cases, the roles and responsibility of the agencies and the issues and challenges in handling incestuous cases. A qualitative approach is used by employing in-depth interviews and guided by a semi-structured interview protocol. Sixteen (16) incest victims from protection homes and eight (8) key persons representing the relevant agencies participated in this study. Six themes has been emerged in further explaining the factors of incest occurrences namely the dysfunctional family, availability of victims, misuse of drugs, sexual education, religious faith and pornography. This study reveals that family institution is the most influential factor that leads to incest occurrences especially when the victims experience a dysfunctional family. Meanwhile, several challenges have been faced by the agencies in exercising their roles and duties in handling the issues of incest, especially when conducting collaborative work with multiple agencies. The key person from respective agencies outlined several issues and challenges including dissemination of information, insufficient staff, too many cases to handle, time constraint, lack of participation by other agencies in performing their duties, and poor communication among the collaborative agencies. The findings indicate that extensive efforts in addressing the incestuous issues are needed, especially in preventing children from being sexually abused, detecting the early sign of the abuse, providing the victims with a more convenient channel of reporting as well as ensuring the protection of the children is being upheld. This study argues that any changes in the trend of incest cases should be monitored as incest will be common and acceptable by some of the victims, and many unreported cases will continue to occur without any intervention by the relevant authorities