PETALING JAYA: Human rights groups have warned that the Cabinet’s decision to abide by a 20-year-old circular requiring healthcare workers to notify security forces if undocumented migrants get vaccinated will only discourage them from doing so.
In a parliamentary reply on Thursday, home minister Hamzah Zainudin said the requirement was in line with a circular issued by the health director-general in 2001 that healthcare workers must inform security authorities about the presence of undocumented migrants at healthcare facilities.
“This will definitely have a great effect on their response in coming forward to get vaccinated. It will only create vaccine hesitancy,” said New Su Shern, the executive director of Project Liber8, an NGO which promotes migrant rights.
“This also dampens all the work that people have been doing to let undocumented migrants know they should not worry about being vaccinated.”
She said that in general, many of them want to be vaccinated because they understand the health benefits of being vaccinated.
“However, they will now think twice because they fear being arrested, especially after announcements like Hamzah’s on Thursday,” she said.
The Cabinet decision on July 30, citing the circular, states that healthcare workers have to record personal details of undocumented migrants and hand over the details to the security forces.
Adrian Pereira, executive director of human rights group North South Initiative, called the news “really shocking” and said he believed around two to three million undocumented migrants had yet to get their jabs.
“The government is saying one thing but practising something else. This is not making it easy or safe for undocumented migrants to get vaccinated,” he said.
“We are now living in a pandemic, and these mixed messages will only cause more deaths.”
There are an estimated two to four million undocumented migrants in the country. Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin had on several occasions — the latest yesterday — reassured undocumented migrants that no action would be taken against them if they come forward to get vaccinated.
Alex Ong, another migrant rights activist, hoped Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob would step in and clear the air, especially as the Cabinet meeting which decided on the matter took place when his predecessor, Muhyiddin Yassin, was in power.
“I believe the country’s new leadership has to take another look at this circular, especially since they say their priority now is fighting the pandemic,” said Ong, coordinator of Migrant Care Malaysia. - FMT
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