‘AG Chambers aiding human traffickers’

A labour activist claims that the AG Chambers is working hand in glove with the Bangladeshi High Commission to aid human traffickers.

KUALA LUMPUR: Labour activist Abdul Aziz Ismail has accused the Attorney-General’s Chambers of colluding with the Bangladeshi High Commission to aid human traffickers.

In an open letter to the government, the Selangor Anti-Human Trafficking Council member said he came to such a conclusion after his appointment as a workers welfare adviser under the Bangladeshi High Commission here was suddenly revoked.

“The sudden cancellation of my appointment by the commission under the instructions of the AG Chambers is beyond their boundaries and perimeter and it was done in bad faith,” he wrote.

He said he suspected that the AG Chambers and the Bangladesh High Commission had, willingly or unwittingly, become the tools of human trafficking syndicates, by protecting them.

In 2007, Aziz said he was officially appointed to assist or represent Bangladesh migrant workers on matters concerning their welfare by the commission. He was then empowered to assist them to obtain temporary stay visas, lodging police reports and accompanying them during legal proceedings as a translator.

He said in the years of voluntarism in this manner, he succesfully secured about more than RM700,000 of unpaid wages for exploited foreign workers.

He said that his work had began somewhere between 2006 and 2009, when most of the Bangladesh migrant workers were brought into Malaysia and issued fraudulent “calling visa” by the Immigration Department approved by the Home Ministry to bogus employers or outsourcing companies.

He alleged that those workers were later sold to a third party by their bogus employers or outsource companies, and abandoned.

“These traffic victims were later detained and arrested as undocumented, illegal entry, over-staying and violating employment pass,” he said.

Aziz said he was much involved during that period and represented victims of unpaid wages, unlawful dismissal, unlawful detention and all other suppression by agents, employers or the authorities.

All these he did without being paid a single sen by the commission or by the victims.

He said that the current 6P amnesty programme was akin to a “Re-Trafficking Programme” that caused hundreds of thousands of foreigners to be cheated and victimised by enforcement agencies.

Human trafficking industry

“Their objective is to deport the current re-trafficked victims at the expense of public funds and recruit new intake to boost the human trafficking industry,” he added.

Recently, Aziz helped FMT expose SNT Universal Corporation Sdn Bhd to be behind the exploitation of foreign workers, mainly Bangladeshis.

The company was accused of committing several offences, including cheating by falsely claiming to be able to register foreigners under the 6P programme and getting work permits for them, and setting up dozens of bogus employment agencies.

Those working in the company were also accused of assaulting these foreigners, an episode of which was captured on CCTV recordings.

FMT also reported that former home minister Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, the current MP for Kangar, was also a director in SNT Universal Corporation Sdn Bhd, according to the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) records.

Radzi later explained that he was roped in to be a director by several friends and that he was unaware of the activities of the company.

Former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan had also weighed in on the controversy, alleging that the way the government had conducted the 6P was akin to human trafficking.

“When you privatise 6P and foreign labour, and allow third parties to make money out of it… this can be regarded as human trafficking,” Musa said.