KUALA LUMPUR: The prime minister has shot down a suggestion to require women to obtain permission before travelling overseas on their own.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said yesterday 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 for the women concerned," he told Bernama.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim had proposed on Saturday that all women travelling out of the country alone be required to produce such letters in a move to prevent them from being duped into carrying drugs for international syndicates.

More than 150 Malaysian women have been detained in several countries on suspicion of drug trafficking.
"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."

In Putrajaya, Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said consent letters from employers or parents could not be imposed to restrict women from travelling.

He said the consent for travel proposal could not be carried out as there were many legal issues including human and individual rights to consider.

"Children will have to get parental consent before travelling but in this respect, as adults, it is up to them. They have to be able to act on their own.

"When a person applies for a passport, we do not ask him where he is going. It is his right to apply. When he makes visa arrangements, the host country can ask the purpose of his visit but that's about it.

"It cannot ask a person who has reached the age of majority to first get consent," he said here after a monthly gathering for staff of the Prime Minister's Department yesterday.

Most of the agencies that would have been involved in the proposed plan, including the Immigration Department and the police, are overseen by Syed Hamid's ministry.

He said the ministry had provided (police and Interpol) data in a joint paper with the Foreign Ministry that was presented to the Cabinet.

"I think Rais was just throwing in his idea. We have never discussed (the proposal).

"My position has always been that the public needs to be educated on the dangers of being influenced and lured by good offers and that the media needs to expose the syndicates.

"The issue of Malaysian women being used by drug traffickers is of great concern to us. But adults who want to travel must be able to make their own decisions. It is up to them," Syed Hamid said.

He said the ministry would continue co-operating with Interpol to obtain information on the drug syndicates' operations.

Rais' proposal drew flak from non-governmental and women's organisations, which called it "regressive, unfair and biased".