Before I start this essay, I really want to tell how badly the foreigners need the protection by the law in LEDC (Less Economically Developed Countries) which now does not have much of them.
This is based on my experiences in Malaysia throughout 3 years. Malaysia is a peaceful countries with the least crime than most South East Asian Countries (except for Singapore) according to what I heard before I came to Malaysia. However, in the middle of KL which is nearby KLCC, foreigners are frightened by many things.
One thing is the rapists. I was shocked because children in Malaysia, especially for girls, they are not really going out to meet their friends by themselves when the place is not around their house. In Korea, I always go to Seoul, which is taking me an hour (sometimes around 2 hours) from my house to meet my friends. We don’t afraid about going out by ourselves because we are old enough to do that. But Malaysian don’t. I was wondering why and they said the reason is there are so many rapists - people who commit rapes - around, so parents are not allowing them to do go out without the adults.
Even the local people are frightened.
The other thing is that there are quite a lot of men with bikes just crush the window and steal the stuffs inside. This very rarely happens in Korea. I never was worried about I having expensive things in my hand or outfits when I am in the car. No one really crush the window in the middle of the day. There are so many cameras on the highway or even the small roads.
Once, I experienced that a man was looking coming towards me and asking me if I want to follow him. I rejected of course. But he was trying to drag me to his bike and that time I just ran away. He was staring at me until I was gone out of his sight. That was nightmare.
Also, once I was sexually assaulted by the old man. He asked my name, school, nationality. That time, I was waiting for the bus and he was a taxi driver so I didn’t doubt him at first. In Korea, all the taxi drivers asking people something as I know them for a long time. This is just a strategy for them to have more customers or just interesting about all the different stories people have because they are bored. I didn’t answer, but my friend answered them, but telling lies. Then he asked me to sit next to him. Then he said he want to take pictures of me (of course, as naked). Fortunately bus arrived soon after that. Never actually happened, but still I was frightened.
Two last cases can be punished by the Korean and MEDC (More Economically Developed Countries) because I am a teenager. I told this to my Malaysia friend, she said “Why are you caring about small things like that. That isn’t a big deal.” I was shocked. I said that I want to bring a charge for these cases above, but she was just looking at me as I am a crazy person. Then she told me the police will not do anything for me by the Malaysian law.
By these case, the law in LEDC countries are very weak compare to MEDC countries law. Usually the law does not protect the foreigners by the sexual molestation when there is no direct touch. There are a lot of people have been foreigners and living in LEDC countries.
I researched about the Korean law and they said if it has happened in Korea, the men who did the sexually unhappy things to me are definitely having a sentence in jail. For the MEDC countries, they sentence the men or the victims of the case will get the money from the men for the mental treatment from the mental shock they had.
Sadly this is not the only case by the law that the foreigners unprotected. Also there are quite a lot of people in the LEDC countries actually had similar experience with me, but did not have any compensation. They have been frightened and post what actually happened in their blog or the online communities to warn the other tourists or migrators.
These can be stop if LEDC countries have more strong sentence for the sexual molestation and compensation for the victims. People who have not been these situation don’t know how scary it is, but as a victim, I honestly can’t really do other things and just too frightened to get out of it. Therefore, the law in LEDC should be improved!
