Orang Asli women taken for a ride

GUA MUSANG: THEY married the foreign workers, bore their children and now find themselves all alone.

That's the fate of more than 50 Orang Asli women here, when their husbands who came from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia returned to their home countries and never returned.

It is believed that the women met their foreign spouses as long as 10 years ago when they worked at vegetable farms near Lojing, near here, with some following their husbands back to their home countries.

But Kelantan Orang Asli headman Bidi Ronggeng said the women who remained would continue facing hardship in the future as many found themselves unable to raise the children on their own.

"The women will be abandoned and left alone when the foreigners go back to their home countries," he said, adding that these women did not receive any support from their foreign husbands.

Bidi said the problem was not new for the Orang Asli near Lojing and Pos Brooke here, with many parents of the young women being aware of the situation.

Pos Brooke Orang Asli headman Riang Bujang said Orang Asli girls had always been the target among foreigners working at vegetable farms.

He said some of them married the Orang Asli women out of lust, with no intention of looking after them.

"When they returned to their countries of origin, they didn't care about their wives here as they already have wives back home," he said.

On the exact number of Orang Asli women who had tied the knot with these foreigners, he estimated the number to be around 100.

"We cannot stop them from getting married. The problem arises when these women are abandoned," he said.