Klang-based cleaning company raided, 51 workers rescued

A Klang-based cleaning services company was raided today, several weeks after a group of its former employees raised their alleged exploitation to international migrant workers' rights NGO, Migrant Care.

Sources told Malaysiakini the multi-agency raid comprised Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Council (Mapo), the Immigration Department, police from the Klang Utara district station as well as Labour Department officers from Putrajaya and Selangor.

"A total of 51 workers were taken to the Klang Utara police station," said the source. The workers comprise 50 Indonesians and one Cambodian.

The source said two Malaysians identified as members of the staff of the cleaning company and a staff member of a manpower agency that shared the same premises were also arrested during the three-hour raid from around 6 am this morning.

"The companies' owner was said to be overseas," the source revealed.

Coincidentally, the raid today took place one day before International Migrants Day which has been marked globally since 1990 on Dec 18.

Migrant Care country representative Alex Ong recently claimed that workers brought in to work for the cleaning services company were also farmed out as domestic helpers by its sister manpower agency.

He said several employees of the cleaning company were recently let go after they attempted to protest against the alleged non-payment of their wages and other forced labour elements during their employment.

Malaysiakini had at the time sighted a check-out memo issued by the Immigration Department's Foreign Workers unit to one of the workers with the "general reason for exit" stated as "disciplinary problems".

When met by Malaysiakini recently, Ong had also alleged links between the cleaning services company and a former maid agency - which used to occupy the same premises raided today - that made headlines in 2012 for alleged labour trafficking offences. - Mkini