Fri, 25 May 2012

Prisoners in Malaysia will be employed to do laundry for the National Service Training Department, in a move, which is hoped to make it easier for offenders to find work after their release.

The contract, which runs until 2016, sees inmates washing and ironing military trainees’ uniforms and cleaning towels at 20 prisons nationwide.

There are plans to extend this to boot repair in the future, and defence ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Ismail Ahmad says: "With the laundry and cobbling skills, it would be easier for the inmates to find jobs after they are released from prisons.”

The national service programme accepts 90,000 trainees a year across 79 camps.