Ahead of Malaysia visit, migrant workers press Bangladesh PM to end recruitment syndicates

 

The Migrant Welfare Network (MWN) has submitted a public letter to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman ahead of his visit to Malaysia next week, urging his government to dismantle recruitment syndicates.

The group, comprising current and former Bangladeshi workers, said the letter highlights alleged human rights violations faced by workers throughout the migration process to Malaysia.

In a statement released from embargo at noon local time today, MWN claimed Bangladesh is the only country subjected to a “syndicate-based recruitment model” in Malaysia, where worker recruitment is channelled through a limited number of agencies despite the country’s heavy reliance on migrant labour.

“The Bangladesh-Malaysia migration corridor remains one of the most economically significant labour migration routes in Asia, yet it continues to operate under a lawless syndicate system enabling exploitation, monopolisation, and impunity,” the MWN stated.

The group stressed that the root cause of labour issues affecting Bangladeshi migrant workers is recruitment syndicates.

Bangladeshi migrant workers having their iftar meal at Masjid Jamek in Kuala Lumpur, circa 2024

“Without dismantling the syndicate system, no reform will be sustainable in this migration corridor.

“The syndicate system remains the central driver of corruption, worker exploitation, excessive migration costs, and repeated governance failures in the Bangladesh-Malaysia migration corridor,” the MWN said.

It urged the Bangladeshi government to institute the following demands:

• Replace the memorandum of understanding (MOU) it signed with Malaysia in 2021 with a bilateral labour agreement to guarantee worker protections,

• Eliminate recruitment syndicates in Bangladesh, ensuring participation of licensed agencies,

• Bring immediate regularisation to the status of undocumented Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia,

• Ensure that owed unpaid wages, compensation, and legal entitlements are paid to migrant workers,

• Effectively end practices of passport confiscation, forced labour, and abuse against migrant workers,

• Strengthen the accountability, responsiveness, and services of the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia, and

  

• Establish a permanent and transparent mechanism under the Bangladeshi prime minister’s office to address the grievances of migrant workers as well as the governance of their issues.

M’sian groups want syndicate system to end too

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The letter to Tarique noted that the request for syndicate-free recruitment had also come from Malaysian organisations, including the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Alliance (Ikhlas) and the Malay Economic Action Council (MTEM).

In 2022, Malay Mail reported that Ikhlas had lodged police reports against then human resources minister M Saravanan over his claims that Bangladesh had decided to allow only 25 agencies there to recruit workers for Malaysia, after a denial from former Bangladeshi welfare and employment minister Imran Ahmad.

Imran is one of the 103 people charged in 2024 with human trafficking linked to a migrant worker syndicate.

Also in 2022, another report from Malay Mail quoted MTEM chief executive Ahmad Yazid Othman as urging the government to probe the 25 selected Bangladeshi agencies over national security concerns.

In its letter, the MWN condemned the recruitment system as “unjustified and systematically corrupt”.

This mechanism also contradicts Bangladesh’s national interests by directing funds into the pockets of syndicate masterminds instead of the country’s development, the group added.

In the accompanying press statement, MWN detailed the alleged abuses against migrant workers, which include: 

• The confiscation of passports, 

• Wage theft, 

• Underpayment, 

• Excessive working hours, 

• Poor and overcrowded living conditions,

• Fake job promises and non-existent employers,

• Employment through irregular outsourcing companies,

• Failure to renew work permits, leading to undocumented status,

• Lack of access to healthcare,

• Barriers to changing employers, and

• Challenges in accessing justice.

Last month, during talks organised by the International Labour Organization, stakeholders recommended the renegotiation of the MOU between Bangladesh and Malaysia to ensure a more transparent recruitment process and end the practice of limiting agency selection.

The two countries signed the MOU on Dec 19, 2021, aiming to reopen the Malaysian migrant labour market, which had been suspended since 2018, and to establish a mechanism to send Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia in an orderly and legal manner.

However, the MOU drew criticism from recruitment agencies and stakeholders in Bangladesh for two main reasons: firstly, that only 25 to 100 licensed agencies out of more than 1,500 registered agencies were allowed to send workers to Malaysia.

Secondly, although the Bangladeshi government sets a maximum cost of around BDT79,000 (RM2,550), there are allegations that workers have to pay between BDT350,000 and BDT500,000 to recruitment agencies. - Mkini