Chastity Belts! Would Malaysian Malay women be forced to use them one day?

With the apparent rising cases of sexual crimes such as rape in Malaysia, my thoughts went back to that era of the dark ages or medieval times where women then wore chastity belts to protect their most prized belongings. Pardon me if I chose the wrong word to describe it.

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think the Malays have ever been recorded in the local written history to ever use chastity belts in the past. But the Malays do have a local name for it, ‘cawat besi’ if I’m not mistaken. Correct me if I’m wrong! I never did bother to check whether this is true or otherwise.

The current ruling government of Malaysia did one time ago declare that they could never afford to put many policemen on the beat in cities and towns all over Malaysia. Hence, we could not really depend on the police alone to take care of our Malaysian women in general.

Personally, I feel that the rising cases of sexual crimes in Malaysia has a lot to do with the ever increasing costs of living which by far has gone insanely too much for anybody’s taking! When living itself is getting unbearable, Malaysians who are poor and desperate would become stressed and that may inadvertently cause them to lose control of their own selves. We could never really tell when their self control would snap but rest assured that the consequences would be horrific!

On a worst case scenario, the rate of sexual crimes in Malaysia might one day reach unprecedented heights and may even be declared as a nationwide concern if we go by what is happening today. I have this disturbing thought, how then could our Malaysian Malay women (wanita Melayu) protect themselves from this horrible scourge? Surely we could not expect parents to confine their daughters or husbands to place their wives under house arrests for protection? Mind you, this is not funny at all! History has taught us that worst case scenarios have indeed taken mankind by surprise too many times in the past!

Confinement is definitely not a good idea since Malaysian women today contribute much to the Malaysian economy. Malaysian women are an important part of the national growth agenda and we could not afford to lose them even for a single day. Well then, how would Malaysian women contribute to the nation under such worrying situation then?

History is a funny thing. If we look at it closely, there are times when the history would come back and haunt us in a few hundred years. Chastity belts for an example were deemed unnecessary in the modern world somewhere in the late 18th century. They were supposed to be extinct just like the dinosaurs but they made a comeback somehow in the late 19th century. Some concerned folks are nowadays silently using them to protect their loved ones. I have no problem with that; they can do however they like.

So Malaysian Malay women, if the above worst case scenario really becomes a reality, what would be your option? Would you be forced to wear chastity belts to protect yourselves just like what women in the medieval times did one time ago?

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