World Day Against the Death Penalty: The Women Who Survived Malaysia’s Death Row – Jia Vern Tham

OCTOBER 10 — “None of us have enough sanitary pads.”

“They barely give us enough soap to clean ourselves.”

“I haven’t spoken to my children in eight years, I don’t know if they are still alive.”

Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty in April 2023, replacing the punishment with 30 to 40 years’ imprisonment with caning or the discretionary death penalty for all crimes punishable by death.

This was followed by a resentencing exercise, during which the Federal Court re-examined the death sentences handed down to 978 eligible prisoners – 95 of whom were women.

At the 88th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in May 2024, the Malaysian government said that 88 of the 95 women eligible for the punitive measure are foreign nationals, reflecting the long-standing demographic characteristics of women on death row in Malaysia. .

Of these, 34 of the 95 women had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment – ​​thirty years after their arrest.

As part of HAYAT’s outreach work, almost twenty women contacted us. They have completed the sentencing and are currently serving the remainder of their 30-year sentences in their respective prisons.

They are grandmothers, mothers and young women from the Middle East, East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty in April 2023, replacing the punishment with 30 to 40 years’ imprisonment with caning or the discretionary death penalty for all crimes punishable by death. — AFP file photo

The disproportionate impact of the death penalty on women

The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide noted that most women are sentenced to death for crimes arising from their relationships with partners, friends and families.

Women who are seen as having entrenched gender norms because they are cast as “a bad wife, a bad mother, and a bad wife” are more likely to receive a death sentence – regardless of the manipulative or coercive intimate relationships women face prior to their death. their arrests.

Despite legislative progress last year, there is still no formal obligation for Malaysian courts to take into account gender-specific concerns for women facing the discretionary death penalty.

Furthermore, the ongoing grudge exercise has shown a trend of courts showing significant reluctance to exercise any further discretion in reconsidering a person’s death sentence beyond the stated 30 to 40 year prison sentence, regardless of the physical and mental conditions experienced during the captivity developed.

For example, a paralyzed woman on death row was sentenced to thirty years in prison, despite her deteriorating condition and the risk of dying in prison.

Fortunately, today we don’t have to worry about the challenges, intricacies, politics, and legal complexities behind judicial discretion.

Today I want to share what we know about women on Death Row.

How did they get here?

In 2012, Anne*, a single mother, was arrested for smuggling drugs into Malaysia when her son was six years old. Her husband had died not long after the birth of their son.

Anne was initially given a 16-year prison sentence, but this was overturned by the Federal Court in 2016 and she was sent to the gallows.

Anne was ultimately given a 30-year prison sentence to replace her death sentence earlier this year, and she has about eight years left to serve.

Anne has consistently claimed that she has no knowledge of the substances in her possession; and the person who exploited her has also been convicted at home for, among other things, recruiting drug couriers.

The person has now served his sentence and has been released. To this day, Anne doesn’t understand that she is still locked up outside the home for someone else’s crime. “How is it possible that she (the exploiter) has suffered punishment while I am still here?”

“If all goes well, you may have a good orang-jahat.” — Mariam*, an elderly inmate currently battling cancer

The abolition of the mandatory death penalty last year also resulted in an amendment to section 39(B) of the Dangerous Drugs Act, meaning the mandatory death penalty is no longer an option.

For Anne, this transition would ideally be a better recognition of her low-level role as a drug mule in transnational crime, but her frustration points to a lack of transnational coordination in investigating drug trafficking cases.

Jen*, a mother of two, burst into tears the first time I spoke to her in her native language. “Do you know you’re the first person to ever ask me about my story? No lawyer or judge has ever bothered to hear me fullyj.”

Jen was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death, but she never understood the legal process she was facing. “How could I have done that? No one gave me a lawyer who knew my case well enough and spoke in my native language.” Jen has since received a 30-year prison sentence in lieu of her death sentence.

Article 14 (3a) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that every person has the right to be “promptly and detailed informed, in a language he or she understands, of the nature and cause of the charges against him/her ”.

I asked Jen about the moment she realized she was being sent to the gallows. “I didn’t know anything about it… other women were crying in the courtroom, probably also because of their death sentences, but I wasn’t. The guards were also extra nice to me after I was sent back to prison to have my clothes changed (into the red and white top that signifies you are a death row inmate).

One of the guards finally realized that I might not know what was going on, and she found another inmate to tell

me that (the top meant) that I would die.

Surviving Death Row

After their death sentences were commuted to 30 years in prison, most women told me they could now look forward to being reunited with their families back home.

They have been moved from solitary confinement cells (the standard for death row inmates in Malaysia) to larger cell blocks. For some the move was a relief, for others not so much.

Mariam*, a single mother in her 60s who spent more than a decade on death row before being resentenced, is currently battling cervical cancer in a cell block and dealing with the challenges of post-operative recovery every day.

“Ever since I moved to a bigger cell block, it’s been tough being an old woman… especially with my condition. With my scars from the surgery, it is physically challenging to have to queue for the toilet, and having to stand for hours to work for RM0.30/day does not help my condition.”

Mariam is now placed in the catering department of the prison where she is located.

Apart from those on death row, prisoners can generally be placed in various units in Malaysian prisons for work.

What motivates Mariam most these days is the prospect of being reunited with her three children at home, even though she has not been able to contact any of them for the past eight years. “I don’t know if they’re still alive… but I have to find out.”

The women have also navigated the lack of hygiene supplies, especially sanitary towels. While others try to trade commodities with each other, Aly* and some of her friends told me how they deal with this problem.

“We try to find T-shirts hanging around to tear them up and fold them into ‘reusable’ sanitary pads… but that doesn’t do our skin any good,” Aly reveals as she scratches her arms which were noticeably infected with ringworm disease.

Although there is no legal barrier to healthcare in prison, the limited resources provided to the prison department affects what can be provided.

For example, in one prison, women deplored a “lottery system,” in which the clinic randomly selects inmates each week so that appointments can be scheduled accordingly.

It is entirely possible that someone will not be ‘selected’ for a medical appointment for an extended period of time.

I asked Aly what was being done about her infection. “It’s almost impossible to get allergy medicine here… we don’t even get enough fever pills, let alone for this (problem).”

Looking back on this World Day against the Death Penalty

On July 4, 2024, Kinabatangan MP Bung Moktar Radin asked in parliament if Malaysia “follow the example of the Philippines… where (they) have successfully… managed to keep drug dealers under control. (They) used to be one of the largest drug exporting countries in the world. But today it’s almost empty… Why? Because tens of thousands were executed.”

Inflammatory rhetoric about the need for the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking crimes, and the portrayal of drugs as a ‘threat to national security’, has historically been used to challenge the use of the death penalty as a deterrent to drug trafficking in Malaysia. justify.

This fact remains unchanged one year after the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

However, after months of meeting these women convicted of drug trafficking in Malaysia, I wonder: Did I ever need the death penalty to protect myself and my loved ones from the drugs these women before me found in their possession? ? ?

Faced with generational economic insecurity, coercion in all forms, due process violations, and long-term physical and mental decline, are these women the ones my government is trying to protect me from?

Or will I be more likely to discover camaraderie in them?

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.

** Jia Vern Tham worked briefly as a news writer and is now a lead researcher at HAYAT, a grassroots group that works with death row prisoners, including women.

HAYAT documents the life experiences of death row inmates and tells their stories as they work to reform the criminal justice system and prison conditions.

*** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malaysian Post.