Deputy Minister: Fewer than 8% of single mothers receive aid

KUALA LUMPUR: Fewer than 60,000 of the 800,000 Malaysian women whom are widowed, divorced or permanently separated, receive aid as single mothers, said Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Azizah Mohd.

"Based on Malaysia Home and Population Census in 2010 carried out by the Statistics Department, a total of 831,860 women or 2.9% of the population were either widowed, divorced or permanently separated.

"As of June this year, a total of 66,243 are receiving aid as single mothers from the Ministry," she said when replying a question by Zuriada Kamaruddin (PKR-Ampang) in the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday.

Besides this, she said that a survey done last year revealed that a total of 2.6 million Malaysians, or 8.2% out of the population of 29.34 million, were above 60 years old.

As of May this year, she said that only 160,070 senior citizens were registered with the Ministry for assistance.

She added that based on the World Health Organisation's World Disability Report in 2011, there were an estimated 4.4 million disabled persons in the country.

However, she added that only 464,967 individuals were registered as disabled, of which only 100,424 received financial aid from the Ministry.

She also said that some 9,000 disabled persons were take out the list after undergoing training to become productive to society when asked by Zuriada if there were cases of non-eligible individuals who were still receiving aid from the Ministry.