What is stalking

PERPETRATORS stalk their victims in many ways: following a person around, appearing at the target’s home or workplace, sending unwanted gifts, making harassing phone calls, leaving messages or objects, driving by or staking the victim’s home or workplace, vandalising a person’s property, going through their belongings and even harassing the victim’s family and friends.

With social media, stalking has become a lot more invasive, giving way to new forms of harassment such as humiliating a person by posting private photos or information online, leaving threatening comments and messages, humiliating and isolating the victim by attacking their friends and so on.

Statistics show that women get stalked more than men. In the United States, one in six women and one in 19 men have experienced stalking at some point. In Britain, one in five women and one in 10 men get stalked.

Data on stalking in Malaysia is unavailable but Women’s Aid Organisation advocacy officer Yu Ren Chun estimates that more than 30% of female domestic violence victims experience stalking and that nine in 10 murder cases from domestic violence are preceded by stalking.

But it’s not just spouses and ex-spouses that stalk; more than 50% of stalking cases are carried out by strangers, acquaintances and intimate partners.

It is crucial that protection for all victims of stalking are in place, for men, as well as women.

“Stalking doesn’t only happen to women and not only in domestic violence situations. That’s why it is important for it to be recognised as a crime under the Penal code,” says Yu.

In many cases, stalkers are former intimate partners or acquaintances. But case studies and news reports show that perpetrators can be anyone, from a stranger, a professional contact to a colleague or an acquaintance.