Malaysia and Thailand hope to give equal importance and focus on
tracking down women drug traffickers since they cannot be considered as
just drug mules.
Bukit Aman Narcotics Chief Datuk Noor Rashid
Ibrahim said police are aware of the latest trend whereby women are
willingly becoming drug traffickers and not being used as drug mules
like in the past.
“Maybe all these while police have been focusing
on drug traffickers who are men and probably that is why women have
seized the opportunity to become drug traffickers.
“This is not a
new phenomena because many women are involved willingly and not being
forced into such activities,” he told reporters after chairing the 35th
Malaysia-Thailand bilateral meeting on Narcotics Law Enforcement
Cooperation here yesterday.
Thailand was represented by Deputy Secretary-general of the Thailand Narcotics Control board, Sukhum Opasniputh.
Noor
Rashid said statistics involving Malaysians detained for drug offences
by Thailand in 2011 showed 17 men and a woman but the statistics
released until October this year showed 30 men and seven women were
detained in Thailand for drug trafficking.
He added that the
number of Thai nationals detained in Malaysia for the year 2011 was 208
men and 66 women but the figures until September showed 145 men and 74
women were detained for drug trafficking.
