Tuesday 6 May 2008

PM shoots down Rais' proposal

The Prime Minister has shot down a proposal requiring women to obtain permission before travelling overseas on their own by Datuk Rais Yatim who has since clarified that it was meant for both men and women under the age of 21.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to introduce a regulation that compels women to obtain consent letters from employers or parents.

“The proposal to obtain consent will only create great difficulty, particularly for the Immigration authorities and also the women concerned,” he was quoted as telling Bernama.

“I will ask Wisma Putra and the Home Ministry to issue a travel advisory asking all Malaysian citizens to be cautious when travelling out of the country,” Abdullah said.

The Foreign Minister had announced the proposal on Saturday but clarified yesterady saying he was "referring to boys and girls who travel on their own, especially those below 21 years old and are still subject to the supervision of their parents." (read here. )

The proposa1 caused outrage among women organisations who described it as "backward, unfair and an infringement of our rights."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you our prime minister for deciding so. The way to go is not to restrict but to educate and create awareness to our malaysians (regardless of women or men) so as to ensure that we don't become victims of these drug syndicates anymore.

Here's to more rational and relevant decisions from our goverment! I'm pleased with how things are now. Doing good :)

Anonymous said...

I agree with pipitart. I rather the PM concentrate on protecting more Malaysian women from drug syndicates by enforcing on education and awareness.

Anonymous said...

alahai kak ton,

this smacks of a bad cop/good cop scenario lah.

i think we've been had. no wonder it was such an inane proposal.

so very der "hang tuah" of minister rais yatim to put his own rep on the line to give the beleaguered pm a chance to score points with the people.

hello minister rais, can't believe you indelibly tarnished your rep for a scheme to save the pm's cred. don't you know that it is so in the minus as to be beyond redemption?

short of erasing our collective memory about his performance of the last four years, susah dah nak convince people that he really cares about us.

and with some malaysians, short of the pm going for a brain replacement, it's also susah to convince them that there's anything between his big ears or that he can see much through those often closed eyelids.

that was a very bad move for rather negligible gain, minister.

Anonymous said...

mekyam,

that might be the case, but that was just your judgement and how you want to take it. And i dont think Rais is stupid enough to act as hang tuah for the PM. what's wrong with pak lah making"smart decisions". Everytime he DOES, there's always a conspiracy theory behind it. *sigh.