Careful What You Call Your Wives...

Malaysian men who call wives ugly could face jail

AP - Friday, May 29

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - It soon could be a crime for Malaysian men to call their wives ugly, a women's rights group and a news report said Thursday.

The governmental Women's Development Department plans to ask Parliament to ban "emotional violence" against women, who currently have legal protection against physical assault only, The Star newspaper reported.

Women's groups told the department that husbands who "demonstrate a pattern of causing mental and psychological damage" should face counseling, fines and jail terms, Ivy Josiah, director of the Women's Aid Organization, told The Associated Press.

Offenders include a husband who "tells his wife she is ugly or humiliates her until she feels emotionally pressured," the government department's head, Noorul Ainur Mohamad Nur, said during a conference on violence against women, the newspaper reported.

Noorul Ainur said there was a need to criminalize emotional abuse because it could deeply scar a woman's dignity and self-confidence, the report said.

There were no immediate details about when Parliament would discuss the plan.

About 90 percent of some 800 women who called the Women's Aid Organization for help last year reported being psychologically abused, though some were also physically assaulted, Josiah said.

A government representative said Noorul Ainur and other officials familiar with the plan could not immediately be contacted Thursday.

Original Post: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090528/tap-as-malaysia-belittling-wives-1st-ld-b3c65ae.html