Working women rare in Riau

Working women rare in Riau

PEKANBARU, Riau: Many companies setting up plants in Riau have
been forced to recruit workers from outside the province because
most families here still bar their women from working away from
home.

Muzni Tambusai, the chief of the local office of the Ministry
of Manpower, said most Riau parents are still reluctant to let
their girls go to work in factories.

He cited as an example the case of a newly established textile
company in Lobam, Bintan Island, which only managed to recruit
800 young women while it had vacancies for 3,000. "The company
was forced to bring in women workers from outside the province."

In another case, a manpower exporter company trained 120 local
girls to work in factories, but only 45 were willing to be sent
to work in high paying jobs in Malaysia, he said. (emb)