Female National Service (NS) trainees must now undergo a pregnancy test because those in previous programmes either did not know they were pregnant or had kept secret their pregnancy.

Given the nature of the "very physical" programme, explained Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rohani Abdul Karim, this could be "dangerous" to their health.

NONE"We see the positive (side) of this test. If we find out that they are pregnant, then they won’t be taken (into the programme)," Rohani (right in photo) said, urging women’s rights groups to take a broader view as lives could be saved.

 "This (test) is for safety and health purposes ... don't only see the negative side. So which one now ... are you thinking of: dignity or possible death?”

She said the government only decided to make the pregnancy test compulsory after a survey showed that 94 percent of the "stakeholders" were for it.

"We respect privacy and knew that human rights activists would protest ... so we did a survey ... we were very surprised by the answer ...," she told reporters at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Former women’s affairs minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil had turned down the idea when it was first mooted in 2010. 

Women groups have spoken against the forced test, raising fears that it may push young women with unplanned pregnancies to risk an abortion to avoid being found out.

NS director-general Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil when announcing the compulsory test last week, had said the survey involved 4,500 trainees and their parents in 2011.

Rohani clarified that the survey, ordered by her predecessor, was completed and passed on to the cabinet for a final decision, but that her ministry was not directly involved in the latter part of this process.
 
"It was done before me but I passed on the cabinet paper on the findings of the survey and for the Defence Ministry to think it through  ... and I think they have a counsel and they decided," she said.

Women as decision makers

Rohani earlier attended a roadshow aimed at boosting women's participation in corporate boardrooms in Malaysia to at least 30 percent by 2016.
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She said her ministry has surpassed its target of injecting more women into decision-making posts in listed companies and government-linked corporations.

About 52 women have already been appointed this year as board members of big companies, far higher than the target of 20, she said.

Rohani said a total of 485 qualified women have been identified and listed on a website for companies to consider recruiting them.