Parliament: Over 800,000 women are single mums
Over 800,000 Malaysian women are widowed, divorced or separated, said Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Datuk Azizah Mohd Dun.
“The Malaysian Home and Population Census in 2010, which was carried out by the Statistics Department, reported that 831,860 women or 2.9% of the country’s population were either widowed, divorced or permanently separated.
“As of June this year, 66,243 are receiving aid as single mothers from the ministry,” she told Zuriada Kamaruddin (PKR-Ampang).
Azizah said another survey done last year revealed that 2.6 million Malaysians or 8.2 % of the population of 29.34 million were above 60 years old.
On senior citizens, she said only 160,070 of them were registered with the ministry for assistance.
On disabled persons, the World Health Organisation’s World Disability Report in 2011 had reported that there were an estimated 4.4 million such people in the country.
“However, only 464,967 disabled individuals were registered, of which only 100,424 of them had received financial aid from the ministry.
“About 9,000 disabled persons were taken out from the list after they went for training and have become productive,” she added.
