Features : Orang Asli Women’s Perspectives Needed For Better Conservation — Experts

By Nina Muslim KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 (Bernama) -- Among the 21 Orang Asli arrested in February for trespassing on a palm oil plantation near Kampung Jemeri in Kuala Rompin, Pahang, 17 were women. The company that was given permission to develop the land said the Orang Asli presence there was illegal. The Orang Asli countered that they were on land they had cultivated long before the company arrived, citing the 2002 Sagong Tasi case, where the High Court recognised the Orang Asli’s right to customary land and affirmed the government’s fiduciary duty to protect the rights of Orang Asli communities. Their ages ranging from 26 to 60, the number of Orang Asli women involved in the Kampung Jemeri trespassing case raised some eyebrows, based on comments online, but for the women concerned, it was nothing new. While almost all Orang Asli consider ancestral or customary lands as very important, to the women, the lands are special in a different way.

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