#sia zami

[doorianpavus]

First Look at The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward

[iggyproof]

My Drawing.

🚨Can't see me cry ever again🚨

[etcpackers]

siazami Started 2020 in a pretty good shape, but hungrier than ever to get better. 2020 shall be my year of filmmaking, acting, and getting in better and better shape. Help is on the way. I believe it. Stay blessed 🤙🏾

[woman-loving]

On paternalistic laws and the funny way they work out...

From Unnamed Desires: A Sydney Lesbian History, by Rebecca Jennings, 2015:

Child welfare legislation was widely used in early and mid-twentieth century [New South Wales] to control socially unacceptable, but rarely criminal, behaviour by teenage girls. Kerry Carrington and Margaret Pereira have argued that ‘The blurring of delinquency and neglect led to the expansion of juvenile justice intervention into the lives of young people which allowed the Children’s Court the jurisdiction to punish children for non-criminal conduct.’[18] Girls were charged under the NSW Child Welfare Act 1939 as either ‘neglected’ or ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘exposed to moral danger’ for behaviours such as truancy, sexual activity or being the victims of sexual abuse. A broad range of agents, from the police to social workers, education professionals and psychologists, advised on and intervened in cases, basing their determinations as much on family and social background and current medical and psychiatric theory as on the specific details of the relevant offence or charge. Girls could be sentenced to an indeterminate period in a child welfare institution such as Parramatta Girls Training School, sometimes only ending when they turned 18, although girls charged with a criminal offence would usually only remain for between six and nine months. There was no formal system for distinguishing between girls convicted of a criminal offence and others, although a broad attempt was made to keep girls deemed ‘corrupt’ apart from the rest. Conditions in the home were tough and perceived misdemeanours were punished with solitary confinement or harsh and humiliating tasks such as the scrubbing of floors.[19]

From “Queering the State: Towards a Lesbian Movement in Malaysia,” by Rais Nur and A.R., in Amazon to Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism, ed. Monika Reinfelder, 1996:

In September 1994, a local newspaper highlighted the emergence of a group of young women known as boh sia.[19] These women would allegedly hang out in public places and engage in casual sex with men who picked them up--in other words, these were ‘promiscuous’ women. State reaction was swift. Using the Women and Girls Protection Act 1973, police randomly rounded up these young women (including those who frequented shopping complexes/malls) in the name of protecting them. The imposition of curfews was also proposed.

Another incident involved the then Child Minister of Malacca,[20] who was accused of being sexually involved with a sixteen-year old minor. Normally this would be classified as statutory rape. However, despite acknowledging that there were ‘strong suspicions’, the Attorney General announced that the case had to be dropped as there was insufficient evidence for it to be brought to court.[21] While the minister was allowed to get away scot-free, the sixteen-year-old was put under police custody and later sent to a rehabilitation centre under the Women and Girls Protection Act! A deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s department went further, and advocated that she be prosecuted under Islamic laws for having illicit sex and becoming pregnant out of wedlock.[22] Thus, instead of penalizing the ex-Chief Minister for gross abuse of powers, the state justified punitive action against the young woman on the grounds of her immorality.