High hopes turn into nightmare

From Charles Santiago

This is an account of modern-day slavery, forced labour and abuse perpetrated against a group of migrant workers from Bangladesh.

While we have heard these accounts repeatedly, it still sends a chill down our spine, knowing that such grotesque treatment of vulnerable migrants continues to be rampant in Malaysia.

This story will be told in a few segments, allowing the reader to think through the violations under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) forced labour standards, the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030, and Malaysian labour laws, and how we could come together to explore durable solutions.

Ahmed (not his real name) and 40 other Bangladeshi workers boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur from Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 28.

They were promised jobs, fair wages, decent accommodation, and off days. Everyone believed their lives would change for the better. Little did they know that their nightmare had just begun.

Ahmed and his friends sold whatever little gold they had and their farm animals, borrowed from friends and family with an arrangement to give up their crops’ harvest as interest throughout the duration of the debt, and took out loans from Islami Bank and NGO banks like BRAC with interest rates as high as 10% to 14% to make payments to the employment agency in Dhaka.

They paid a Dhaka-based agency anywhere between 4.8 to 6 lakh taka (RM20,630 to RM25,787) as recruitment fees, an additional 7,000 to 12,000 taka (RM300.85-RM515.75) for medical checkups and 4,000 taka (RM171.91) for biometrics.

They were told they could earn back this money within a year.

On top of this, they were forced to go back and forth to the agency, forking out 30,000 takas (RM1290.00) for the 20 trips.

There were red flags even before the hellish journey began, but the hope of making it big back home by capitalising on the exchange rate made them shirk off those creeping doubts.

For example, Ahmed was not informed about the nature of his job or which sector he would be employed in until two days before departure, when he was told he would be working for a construction company.

Upon signing the contract, Ahmed and his friends noticed that the employer listed on the contract was different from what was promised. Upon enquiry, they were told the company named in the contract was a subsidiary.

The contract was in Bengali and English. They were not given a copy of the contract but managed to take snapshots using their mobile phones.

Before leaving for the airport, Ahmed and the rest of the group were told that if asked, they should tell immigration officers that they paid a total of 80,000 taka (RM3,493) to the agency or they won’t be allowed to get on the plane.

They were also informed that they would be able to keep their passports with them.

The flight was at 10am from Dhaka. Ahmed and the other workers arrived in Malaysia at 5pm. They were flown on Batik Air and were not given any food throughout the five-hour journey.

Upon arrival, they waited for an hour before they met with local counterparts of the Bangladeshi agency before they could clear immigration.

The representatives were a man named Derek and an unnamed woman.

The woman called out their names from a list and seized their passports. She then handed all the passports to an immigration officer who stamped the documents without asking the workers any questions. After they exited immigration, she kept the passports with her.

Ahmed and the others asked for their passports back since they were told in Bangladesh that they could hold their own passports, but she didn’t oblige.

They arrived at the hotel at 4am the next day and didn’t receive any food until later that day.

Here are the labour law (forced labour) violations:

1. Abuse of vulnerability;
2. Deception;
3. Intimidation and threats;
4. Retention of identity documents; and
5. Debt bondage.

Note: The names of the employment agency in Dhaka and the company they were supposed to work at in Malaysia have been kept anonymous to protect the workers and their families in Bangladesh.

Next: “We were confined in a small room like animals. Even then, a police officer extorted money from us.” - FMT

Charles Santiago is former MP for Klang and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.