Former MP expresses concern about long-standing problems in Malaysia’s migrant worker recruitment system.
Bangladeshi local government, rural development and cooperatives junior minister Mir Shahe Alam said on Tuesday that Malaysia would hire about 200,000 Bangladeshi workers over the next six months, a claim which human resources minister R Ramanan denied.
Malaysia stopped hiring Bangladeshi migrant workers after May 31, 2024, due to concerns over high recruitment fees, fake job syndicates and forced labour. Santiago said any resumption of recruitment must include safeguards to prevent a repeat of these problems.
He said the government must first address structural problems in the existing recruitment system, including excessive fees charged to workers and the involvement of multiple intermediaries.
His biggest concern was that a proposed structure – in which 25 Bangladeshi recruitment agencies control access to the Malaysian labour market – appeared similar to previous systems.
Concerns over the Malaysia-Bangladesh recruitment corridor are not new.
In 2024, a group of experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council reported allegations of fraudulent recruitment involving networks in Bangladesh and Malaysia, with workers charged excessive fees, pushed into debt bondage and, in some cases, arriving to find no jobs waiting for them.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) said reports of Bangladeshi workers arriving with valid permits but finding none of the jobs promised began emerging around 2023.
In February 2024, 733 Bangladeshi migrant workers duped into coming to Malaysia for jobs that did not exist were awarded more than RM1 million in unpaid wages, a settlement described by the human resources ministry as a landmark case.
Need for independent oversight
North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira acknowledged demand for migrant workers in Malaysia but said their recruitment must be legal, transparent and free from forced labour.
Pereira said civil society did not know enough about how migrant workers were recruited or how quotas were allocated, noting a lack of independent audit or ombudsman overseeing the recruitment system.
He said high recruitment fees had led to debt bondage and that Malaysia still lacked a comprehensive policy on migrants to ensure that recruitment costs are not passed on to migrant workers.
“All sides must make sure no worker pays for any job,” he said.
“Workers should not be paying for jobs as per ILO standards, supply chain standards, and the 2021 agreement between Malaysia and Bangladesh.”
Pereira also called for proper pre-departure, post-arrival and pre-employment training so that migrant workers understand their contracts and rights before entering potentially exploitative situations.
He warned that limiting recruitment to 25 agencies was not consistent with ILO’s fair recruitment standards and could lead to cartels, as seen before.
Pereira also said that terms between employers and recruitment agents should be transparent. - FMT
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