‘Sex slave to my husband’: A Singaporean's 18-year ordeal in a Malaysian cult-linked group
CNA speaks with two former members of the embattled GISB or Global Ikhwan Services and Business conglomerate, which is facing allegations of child sexual abuse.
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Justin Ong Guang-Xi
@JustinOngCNA
Taufiq Zalizan
23 Oct 2024 06:00AM(Updated: 23 Oct 2024 10:51AM)Bookmark
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SINGAPORE: She was just 17 when forced to marry the son of an influential member of Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB) Holdings, a controversial Malaysian conglomerate in global headlines for allegations of sexual abuse, human trafficking and religious deviance among others.
The Singaporean woman went on to face 14 years of what she described as abuse at the hands of her husband, while senior GISB members turned a blind eye and urged her to stay in the marriage.
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Now a single mother to nine children, this abuse ranged from being beaten by the man - even while she was pregnant - to being forced upon up to five times a day.
“I was a sex slave to my husband,” Zoey, who wished to go by a pseudonym, told CNA in a sit-down interview.
The 34-year-old is among a group of Singaporean former members of GISB, which since September has been under probe by Malaysian authorities.
Hundreds of arrests have been made in relation to the group's activities, with some senior executives nabbed and overseas assets identified.
GISB has links to the Al-Arqam religious cult banned in Malaysia in 1994 due to its deviant religious teachings. Fatwa or religious ruling committees in several Malaysian states recently declared the beliefs propagated and held by GISB followers as deviant as well.
Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution said as recently as on Oct 15, however, that GISB members were still practising banned teachings linked to Al-Arqam, despite public claims to the contrary.
As early as in 1991, the fatwa committee of Singapore's Islamic Religious Council (MUIS) had declared some elements of Al-Arqam's teachings as potentially misleading. In 1994, the committee prohibited Muslims here from following Al-Arqam's teachings.
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In response to CNA’s queries about GISB's teachings, MUIS reiterated the “clear guidance” it had issued in 1994.
“Nevertheless, there may be recalcitrant followers of particular movements who persist,” said a spokesperson.
"WE WERE BRAINWASHED"
Zoey told CNA her parents were already GISB members since she was a child.ADVERTISEMENT
She attended school in Singapore until she was 10 years old, before moving to Indonesia to a hostel run by the group.
Around 2003, she moved to Malaysian state Selangor where she stayed with other teens in another hostel run by GISB.
The next year, after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, she was told by GISB leaders that Al-Arqam founder Ashaari Muhammad - also known as Abuya, Arabic for father - had “caused” the disaster.
“(GISB) leaders claimed that the 2004 tsunami happened because Abuya wanted to cleanse the place of sins,” Zoey said.
She was lulled by the premise at the time.
“When I think back … wow, that was stupid … we were brainwashed."
Other ex-GISB members from Malaysia have since stepped forward as well to reveal the deviant teachings of the group.
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Some told CNA they were taught that Abuya, who died in 2010, was still able to communicate with the group's leaders from the supernatural realm. They were also taught that Abuya was an intermediary to God and would save them on judgment day.
A former member whose father was a top-ranking member of GISB also related to CNA how children in the group did not attend school and received no formal education.
It was the same case for Zoey and the other teenagers in her hostel. They spent their mornings reading about Abuya, and afternoons working - for free - at shops linked to GISB.
“We were only allowed to read reading materials (about Abuya) that (GISB) issued us, and nothing else. Not even newspapers,” she claimed.
She said she was also not allowed to make friends outside of the community.
According to her, because the Malaysia hostel she stayed in was not a registered school, she could not apply for a student pass - so she had to return to Singapore every few weeks to not run afoul of immigration laws.
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Zoey told CNA there was a GISB presence in Singapore as well. She said members operated a cafe in the country's eastern Kembangan precinct, where she performed unpaid labour such as taking orders and cleaning tables. The eatery has since closed.
Former members in Malaysia have also told CNA and several media agencies about how they would work at various GISB enterprises without pay.
When Zoey's parents enrolled her in a private school in Singapore, GISB members actively ostracised her and discouraged it, though the family ultimately stuck with the decision.
These developments led to her growing gradually disillusioned, and speaking up against some of them.
She said that once, for being too outspoken, she was put in “isolation” and not allowed to leave a room in a guest house.
“I saw so many things I doubted or disagreed with,” she said. “At 17, I voiced out that I wanted out.”
HUSBAND HAS "ABSOLUTE" RIGHTS OVER WIFE
In 2007, on the pretext of “saving” her from rebelliousness and external influence, GISB forced her to marry a man 10 years her senior, who was also the son of an active and influential member, said Zoey.ADVERTISEMENT
“I was forced to marry because of my mouth. Because I spoke directly against their wishes."
The then-teenager was married without the presence or permission of her parents. Islamic law in Singapore and Malaysia requires the bride’s father – or in his absence, someone of equivalent authority in the family – to give approval before a solemnisation can proceed.
When she asked what would happen if she didn’t marry the man, GISB threatened to kick her mother – who was then a strong believer – out of the community.
A week later and in Penang where the couple moved to, the man started kicking and hitting Zoey. He did so even when she was pregnant with his child, she said.
“While I was pregnant all the way until I gave birth, whenever he wants to have sex, at any time, I have to say yes,” said Zoey.
Over the years, GISB leaders have been quoted claiming that sexual prowess took a front seat in marriage, beyond that of stereotypical "good mother or good cook” roles.
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Abuya's eldest daughter herself has also come out to tell Malaysian media that she was forced into marriage with a GISB leader after her father's death, and subjected to physical abuse by senior figures in the group. Ummu Atiyyah, now 41, said earlier this month that she was beaten, burned with a lighter, locked in a room, submerged in a pool and forced to strip among other atrocities.
Three years into her marriage, Zoey went to the police, and also sought to leave the man.
But she said her father-in-law told her to withdraw her report, promising that his son would change.
“He also said that a divorce will bring shame to (GISB),” said Zoey.
She said that her ex-husband also told her that before a woman turns 21, her spouse has “absolute caregiving rights” over her, and that if the husband doesn't want a divorce, there’s nothing the wife can do.
After having four children with the man, she tried again in 2014 to divorce him.
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Yet this time it was her own mother who discouraged her from doing so, according to Zoey, who remains unsure if her mum was just carrying out GISB's orders.
Over the years, she said she continued to speak out about her abuse, even showing a picture of her injuries to her mother as well as GISB's senior leadership, including Abuya's wife. But her cries allegedly went ignored.
“(GISB leaders) kept telling me, your husband is your path to heaven."
Zoey said she also tried to take contraceptive pills but was discouraged by other members who said this went against their religion.
She went on to have five more children over the next seven years.
Related:
Child abuse probe: How Malaysian conglomerate GISB managed to stay under the radar
Teacher, 23, gets 10 years’ jail for physically assaulting 3 boys under his care at GISB-linked religious school
TURNING POINT
The man's abuse eventually extended to his kids as well, in particular their second daughter who has autism, said Zoey. She added that at times, he would wield a knife and threaten to kill her and their children.“The only thing (GISB) and my mother told me, was to be patient,” said Zoey.
But her four elder daughters told her they wanted out.
“They said to me: 'If it’s not you who gets beaten up, it’s us. If not us, it’s our younger siblings'."
Among the crimes GISB is being investigated for are allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children under the group's care.
It was the safety of Zoey's kids that proved to be the tipping point and at the end of 2021, she finally gathered the resolve to leave and with the help of relatives, make a police report.
Her mother, once a strict adherent of GISB's ways, finally relented and was persuaded by another family member to help her daughter exit the group. She reached out to a retired businesswoman Mona Din, who's known to aid vulnerable members of the Malaysian public.
Madam Mona told CNA over the phone that she responded by activating her contacts in the community as well as the Penang authorities.
Zoey and her children were then moved to a safe house for abused women and children run by a non-government organisation.
According to Mdm Mona, other former GISB members and alleged victims also reached out for help after catching wind of Zoey’s story.
On Friday (Oct 18) Mdm Mona, together with several former GISB members as well as lawyers and activists, held a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. They launched a bid seeking legal redress for alleged wrongdoings of GISB, including humanitarian and labour infringements similar to what Zoey said she went through.
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The Singaporean filed for divorce in 2021, shortly before leaving for Singapore with additional assistance from her home country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
She now lives in Singapore with her nine children, and operates a home-based business.
CNA has reached out to GISB through multiple avenues, but received no response.
MORE ACCUSATIONS OF UNPAID WORK
Another former GISB member, now in her forties and wishing to remain anonymous, told CNA - just as Zoey claimed - that GISB was active in Singapore.ADVERTISEMENT
She said members were putting up teenagers at a guest house in the Bedok area, with two of her eldest children among a group of over ten girls staying there in the early 2010s. The house has since been occupied by a different tenant.
She said the girls there at the time were as young as 13, and similarly spoke of how they did not receive any formal education.
Only after leaving GISB in 2016 did the former member have the "courage" to send her children to government schools in Singapore.
She said that while in the guest house, the girls were - as also related in several other accounts by ex-members - made to do unpaid work. Theirs took place at a cafe called Mat'am Ikhwan in the Kampong Glam area, which closed in 2016, she said.
Another woman who had a brush with GISB told CNA a similar story.
In 2012, Ms Zainab Ash Shughra, 39, said she stayed in the same guest house with her two children for about three months, while waiting to move into a permanent home.
She told CNA she was never a GISB member, but was introduced to the place by an acquaintance.
At the guest house, Ms Zainab saw teenage girls taking turns doing housework and caring for younger children. She said these teenagers told her they were also rostered to work at a cafe in Kampong Glam, without payment.
"This was clearly against our religion, which teaches us to pay workers promptly," she said.
During her stay at the guesthouse, she also didn't see any of the girls taking classes of any sort.
"I feel pitiful for them. It is their basic right to have education."
Asked about Singaporeans' involvement in GISB, MUIS said its primary approach “involves continued efforts to educate the community about the characteristics of deviant teachings".
The council also reiterated the importance of following only credible guidance by recognised local religious authorities.
“Approach MUIS or our asatizah (Islamic religious teachers) if they have questions about any religious teachings or movements,” said the spokesperson.
