Malaysians must feel that they are stepping back into the dark ages when rapists are not punished for their crimes - but are instead ‘rewarded’ with a marriage that seems to be a trophy for their conquest.

Who will speak for the women and children of Malaysia, if Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rohani Abdul Karim will not?

When the Umno Baru MP for Tasek Gelugor, Shabudin Yahaya, allegedly said that rapists who marry their victims will help to cure social ills, Rohani should have been the first to condemn him for his highly offensive remarks.

She didn’t! Instead, she did nothing more than to say that it was up to Shabudin to say and do as he pleases. What a cop-out for Rohani.

No wonder, in her home state of Sarawak, the Penan girls and women who were raped by timber workers have not found justice. James Masing, the then-Sarawak land development minister, said that their rapes were mere “story telling”, a fabrication of their fertile minds.

Like a woman who must be subservient to her husband, Rohani said that she did not want to interfere with what Shabudin had said, nor did she think it necessary to make him apologise.

In truth, Rohani has failed the women and children of Malaysia. Rohani is not the first to play the “obedient political wife”...