Local women taking up jobs as foreign embassy workers here are plagued by sexual harassment at their workplace, claims a NGO.

Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association (PPIM) legal bureau chairperson Hishammuddin Hashim said there was also no remedy for the women, as those harassing them, allegedly including the ambassador and embassy staff, have legal immunity.

"Legal action cannot be taken against them. The situation for them is different because it involves people who receive immunity in our country," he said in a statement.

At a press conference yesterday, PPIM also presented two women, Mar and Nor (not real names), who claimed they had been sexually harassed at work.

"Their (perpetrators') excuse is their wives and children are in their home country, so they are lonely.

"The embassy staff was only 34-years-old, but I'm approaching 60-years-old. I can be his mother but he doesn't see it like that," Mar was quoted as saying in a transcript sent out by PPIM.

She said workers who rejected their advances were terminated, and the harassment takes place even though it is known the perpetrators are married.

Nor, in her 40s, recounted how their age was not a factor.

"At the embassy where I work, people face sexual harassment regardless whether they are old or young.

"But they don't dare to report it, because many of them (the victims) are foreign workers," she said.

PPIM did not name the embassy claimed to be involved, or whether there was more than one facing such incidents.

PPIM's chief Nadzim Johan said such incidences should not happen.

"With embassies, it is as if its staff can do anything they want due to immunity," he said.