Which Malaysian State Recorded The Most Number Of Sex Crimes? It’s Not A Simple Answer

Sex crimes can be broken down to cases of rape, incest, molest, and sexual harassment with other factors and variables needed to tell the whole story.

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Last week, Kelantan police expressed concerns over the increasing number of rape and incest cases in the state each year, including cases of statutory rape.

Kelantan police chief Datuk Mohd Yusoff Mamat said there were 252 cases recorded in 2024. Compared to 206 cases in 2023, it’s an approximately 22.33% rise from 2023 to 2024.

Mohd Yusoff said it’s very concerning because when rape incidents involving minors are reported each year, it’s reported to be consensual and not by force (suka sama suka bukannya paksaan).

This statement led resident data scientist Thevesh Theva (@thevesh) to dig into the sex crimes data recorded by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM). Thevesh’s exercise of poring over the data showed that Malaysia needs better crime data to get an accurate picture of what’s going on.

In his collated data, the highest number of rape cases per 100,000 population in 2023, involving victims of all races, is in Perlis (8.19). This is followed by Kedah (7.58), Melaka (6.71), Kelantan (6.24), and Pahang (6.15).

As for incest cases, Perlis still takes the top spot (1.36), followed by Pahang (1.22), Terengganu (1.16), Sabah & Labuan (1.06), and Johor (1.02).

Promised to post this yesterday, so here we go:

This is a 🧵 on sex crimes in Malaysia, using annual data published by DOSM (sourced from PDRM).

General conclusion: The nature of sex crimes is VERY different across states.
• Rape and incest seem to be more prevalent in rural… https://t.co/jOGH3lEak7 pic.twitter.com/Xxk1X8P6aG
— Thevesh (@Thevesh) April 11, 2025

What about cases of molest? In 2023, Melaka takes the top spot at 4.67, followed by Kuala Lumpur & Putrajaya (4.19), Penang (4.06), Negeri Sembilan (3.92), and Selangor (3.59).

For sexual harassment cases, the highest is in Kuala Lumpur & Putrajaya (4.14), followed by Penang (2.65), Perak (2.12), Negeri Sembilan (2.12), and Perlis (2.05).

Thevesh shared that based on the data, it showed that rape and incest cases are predominantly happening in rural states like Perlis, Kedah, Pahang, Terengganu, and Sabah.

Meanwhile, there are more molest and sexual harassment cases in places like Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, and Perak.

However, Thevesh noted that it’s impossible to tell whether the trends showed there’s a difference in the nature of sex crimes in each state or it’s due to higher awareness about what’s molest or sexual harassment in more urban states.

Additionally, it may also be that people are more aware and willing to report incest cases to the authorities, instead of burying the secret.

Now, let's zoom into a subset of the data for victims below 18yo, i.e. children.

The conclusion is somewhat similar to before for rape and incest, but slightly different for molestation and sexual harassment.
• For molestation cases, KL / Putrajaya and Penang are in the top 3… pic.twitter.com/XAa7zRWXiT
— Thevesh (@Thevesh) April 11, 2025

In the other graph trying to extract the number of victims below 18 years old aka children/minors from the general data, the numbers are somewhat similar.

This raises the question: What is the percentage of sex crimes in Malaysia that involve children versus adults?

The data from DOSM did not furnish enough information about the age of sexual crime perpetrators, the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, and whether there have been grooming involved.

Thevesh reiterated that DOSM and the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development need to improve the quality of our crime statistics, adding that the data should be published in raw transactional format. It’s currently aggregated.

He also suggested the data to include other fields like the age, sex, and ethnicity of the perpetrator and victim, the police office taking the report, and the duration between the incident and report.

This is a tough topic to discuss. Data doesn't capture the horrors of these events in reality.

If there's something you think I've missed, or different data needed (besides what I've mentioned), let me know.

As always, all open-sourced:https://t.co/sbisnKYUxl
— Thevesh (@Thevesh) April 11, 2025

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