Activist warns of monopoly in recruiting Bangladeshi workers

 

Migrant worker activist Adrian Pereira says Malaysia should not repeat past mistakes in the recruitment of foreign workers.

PETALING JAYA: A migrant worker activist has criticised the decision to restrict the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia to 25 Bangladeshi recruitment agents and their 10 sub-agents.

Creating such a monopoly is anti-competitive and will undo all the efforts for fair recruitment of foreign workers to Malaysia, said North-South Initiative director Adrian Pereira.

“Recruitment reforms must be made public and transparent or else we will fall back to past mistakes,” he told FMT.

Pereira said Malaysia should have an overarching comprehensive policy on labour migration and it should not be forgotten that there are thousands of migrant workers who are still undocumented in Malaysia, and who should be documented first.

Adrian Pereira.

The number of recruitment agents was confirmed in a letter human resources minister M Saravanan sent to Bangladeshi expatriate welfare and overseas employment minister Imran Ahmad on Jan 14.

The letter comes less than a month after both ministers signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Kuala Lumpur to lift a freeze on new Bangladeshi workers which had been in place since September 2018.

Sighted by FMT, the letter was confirmed to be authentic by sources in the human resources ministry, although Saravanan did not reply when asked for comment.

The confirmation of the numbers comes after the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) had called for equal opportunity to allow its 1,600 members to send workers to Malaysia. Baira had previously said that 10 agencies chosen by Malaysia had monopolised recruitment between 2016 and 2018.

In a letter to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Jan 13, Baira warned that recruitment syndicates could result in workers becoming victims of labour exploitation and lead to increases in corruption and human trafficking.

Imran had previously said he was determined to weed out such syndicates, which increased recruitment costs for migrant workers.

Expressing his appreciation over the MoU, Saravanan said it was now important for both sides to ensure “swift and smooth” implementation of Bangladeshi worker recruitment into Malaysia.

“Hence, I would like to recall, and agreed upon by Your Excellency during our discussion in February last year, on the involvement of 25 main Bangladesh Recruitment Agency (BRA) with 10 associate BRA respectively under each main BRA for the recruitment process of Bangladesh workers,” he said in the letter.

“In total, 250 recruitment agencies from Bangladesh will participate,” he said.

He said Malaysian recruitment agencies would also be involved, and their responsibilities were “clearly spelt out” in the MoU.

However, the MoU he signed with Imran in a closed-door event on Dec 19 has been criticised for its lack of details. Asked to comment last week, Saravanan said it was the norm for MoUs in the country to be kept confidential.

Saravanan had said last month that 326,669 Bangladeshi nationals were working in the country as of Nov 30, with the majority of them in construction (136,897) and manufacturing (111,694). - FMT