The all-important and most-accessed “Issues” section of the Women’s Centre for Change (WCC) website for abused women and children – www.wccpenang.org – has received a timely upgrade for easier navigation. This is thanks to an RM18,300 contribution by OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad (OCBC Bank) through its CEO Dato’ Ong Eng Bin.

With the mobile-friendly upgrade, the public can look up information more quickly to help abused women and children. Areas covered and clearly outlined include domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, and marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Notably, the information is available in four major languages – English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil.

A screen shot of the WCC homepage showing the drop-down list of the “Issues” section https://www.wccpenang.org/.

Since 1985, WCC, a non-profit organisation, has helped more than 70,000 women and children who experienced various types of crises, particularly in the form of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

According to Ms Loh Cheng Kooi, Executive Director of WCC, the pandemic and associated lockdowns seem to have brought about an alarming increase in cases of domestic violence as well as online sexual violence and child abuse.

“Sadly, there is no denying that the lockdowns and movement restrictions have been causing an unprecedented rise in domestic violence, not to mention stress within the family and even marriage breakdowns.

“The feedback to us from the ground was that it was difficult to find userfriendly information on how to handle situations of abuse. WCC’s comprehensive website on these issues gives users a better understanding of each issue, how and where to get help for victims, and the laws involved.

“With the upgrade, the sub-sections are now positioned with easy-tonavigate drop-down lists. We also enhanced each of the sub-sections to include more important information and access points to gain help. Notably, we were also able to add translations in Tamil as well to complement the three languages we had earlier, English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese.

“While we dream of the day when the incidence of abuse decreases and renders our website unnecessary, we know we are a long way from there. So, the next best thing is to encourage the public or anyone who is being abused to quickly and safely seek help through our website instead of remaining silent and suffering alone. Help is always at hand.

“We would like to thank OCBC Bank, particularly its CEO Dato’ Ong Eng Bin, for being the backbone of this website enhancement exercise,” she said.

OCBC Bank CEO Dato’ Ong said he was pleased to see the effort coming to fruition and applauded WCC for their on-going commitment to making a change in the lives of those abused, especially due to pandemic-related factors.

“It is a tragedy for anyone to go through any physical, emotional or mental abuse, especially with the acute challenges thrown in their way by the pandemic. We are grateful to WCC for the fine work to upgrade the website so our women and children can have quicker and easier access to help when they need it most. We are glad to have been able to partner with them in this small way,” he said.