SINGAPORE: There will be no hard cap on how long a migrant worker can work here from July 1, 2025, in a move that is set to reshape Singapore's foreign workforce for years to come.
KUALA LUMPUR: One afternoon in August 2024, Alice opened her bedroom door to a man and a woman asking her to follow them to a place almost 300km away, which was anything but a wonderland.
Now, at Komited Malaysia's female rehabilitation centre and halfway house Casa Femina in Kuantan, Pahang, the 39-year-old former criminal defence attorney admits she had an unhealthy relationship with drugs. Unfortunately, sexism does not end there. No matter where she and others go, sexism colours their life at every turn, even during rehab and after.
Although Malaysia's 2024 statistics on drug users only covered data up to September, the numbers showed a huge increase in the first nine months of last year compared to the whole of 2023. "I was defending a woman who was facing drug charges. She had been raped by her father and brother. She told me if she couldn't take drugs, she would kill herself," she said.
Alone in a foreign country with no support system outside her circle of friends that included her boyfriend, she tried drugs with her friends one day. Yasmin told Bernama it was a revelation. For Rosnani Awang, 51, her reasons were more mundane. She tried drugs as a bored 19-year-old in Terengganu with her friends. The drug of choice then was heroin, which she quickly became addicted to.The effects of a history of drug use are numerous. In Malaysia, getting and holding a job with a history of drug use or drug conviction can be difficult for both men and women.
She can attest to six broken engagements, one broken two weeks before the actual nuptials due to her fiance's family discovering her past use of drugs. Even if her fiance initially withstood the onslaught, he ultimately caved in, leaving her with a broken heart. "It ties with my personal because I want to make sure people know they're not alone. Because I've had a history where I did feel alone and I did feel like I didn't know who to talk to or who to trust and I wanted to be that person for people," she said.Under this country's decriminalisation of drug use, drugs would still be illegal and drug traffickers who have an exorbitant amount of drugs in their possession will still face stiff penalties.
She never had trouble getting drugs when she was a lawyer, and once she went through the rehab system, it got even easier. Involuntary rehab is one thing that needs to go away, under the NDPP plan. Outpatient rehab and counselling are usually better.
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