Labour rights group Tenaganita said working women in Malaysia, especially single mothers and migrant workers, have little cause to feel special on National Women's Day today, as development has not significantly improved their lives.

In a statement, Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez questioned the government's claim that women have progressed and that they have equal opportunities at work.

"Have women, especially women workers who have sweated to build this nation gained in the form of development Malaysia has adopted?" she asked.

She said women have lost many rights under the country's globalisation drive and that they are being increasingly exploited, without having access to effective mechanisms for redress.

"The informal economy in the country has expanded and grown with deregulation and liberalisation of capital. There are more than 300,000 domestic workers who are not recognised as workers at all," Fernandez said.

The absence of specific laws , employment contracts and terms of service have made domestic workers - particular foreigners - highly vulnerable to both physical and contractual abuse.

She said, for example, that employers terminate the workers arbitrarily or abuse them with impunity. Those whose work permits are cancelled are deemed to be 'illegal' and consequently, subject to arrest and imprisonment .

A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report had revealed the extent of exploitation of domestic workers, based on a study conducted in Malaysia.

"There is deep concern over the response of the National Council of Women's Organisations (NCWO) that claimed the cases identified by HRW were isolated cases," she said.

"The statement reveals that NCWO knows very little of the current realities experienced by domestic workers."

Poor working conditions

Fernandez also highlighted the situation of more than 30,000 women pesticide sprayers in the country who are insufficiently protected against the hazards of exposure to chemicals.

"The majority are employed under the sub-contracting system. Under this deregulated system, the women are paid daily, given no form of protection and are not unionised," she noted.

"This is a form of piece-rated labour. They cannot form a safety committee as there are less than 40 workers under one contractor. Thus it becomes difficult to monitor health effects and conditions of pesticide use, as provided for under the Occupational Safety and Health Act."

Another category comprises more than 80,000 working single mothers who face tremendous challenges as women and mothers.

"Globalisation increases their burden. Under the current employment system, especially in the manufacturing industries, women are forced to work 12 hours a day as many companies have stopped night shift work," she said.

"The government endorsed this form of employment when it amended the Employment Act that increased the overtime hours of work to four hours a day."

Leaving for work as early as 5.30am and returning home after 9pm, single mothers have to complete household chores - as a result, they get less than five hours of sleep a day.

"They are forced work overtime and many of them are compelled to accept it as their wages are very low. They earn about RM600 per month and, without minimum living wage regulation, they are exploited," she said.

As a large number of women who become single mothers are in their 40s, they are unable to find work in factories.

Tenaganita has found that they are forced to work as cleaners and odd-job workers in the service industry for "low and uncertain wages", leading to an adverse impact on their health and financial status.

"Desperate to make ends meet, many women borrow money from loan sharks who demand they surrender their ATM cards. Then each month, when wages are remitted to the bank, the loan shark withdraws the women's salary as interest and repayment of the loan, leaving the women in a vicious cycle of debt and control," Fernandez said.

Doubly punished

Crackdowns on undocumented workers have revealed that many foreign women are trafficked and forced into prostitution or bonded labour. They are arrested and often jailed without full police or judicial investigation into the circumstances, Fernandez alleged.

"Nine Indonesian women were sentenced to 15 months each in jail by a magistrate's court for possessing forged Malaysian identity cards recently. They were sex workers who had been confined to their premises.

"These women - who are among the thousands trafficked into the country - were punished. We do not hear of pimps, hotel owners and sex industry operators being taken to court."

She said the women are charged under the Immigration Act for illegal entry, but claimed that the authorities use this as an easy way out of their duty to hold the perpetrators accountable.

This reflects the patriarchal norms that various institutions continue to hold where women in the commercial sex industry are victimised and punished, but men - whether as patrons or operators - get away scot free.

"Until and unless the rights of women workers are recognised, respected and upheld, Malaysia cannot be proud to be a developed nation. The change demands a paradigm shift and we have indeed a very long way to go to meet the challenges," Fernandez added.