Address plight of duped Bangladeshi migrant workers, govt told

 

Charles Santiago says a United Nations report on the exploitation of migrant workers will impact the country’s ability to attract foreign investment and puts its exports at risk of being banned. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A former MP has urged the government to respond immediately to scathing criticism from a team of international experts over the country’s failure to protect foreign workers from exploitation.

In the statement issued last Friday, experts appointed by the United Nations’s Human Rights Council said they were dismayed by reports about the “dire humanitarian situation” faced by Bangladeshi migrant workers amid “exploitation, criminalisation and other human rights abuses”.

Charles Santiago described the government’s failure to respond as “appalling” and “problematic”.

He said the report would have a major impact on the country’s ability to attract foreign investment and puts its exports at risk of being banned overseas.

Charles Santiago.

“This is something that has to be dealt with at the highest levels of government.

“You (the government) have to say what you’re going to do and how you’re going to combat this. You can’t keep quiet. That’s not an option,” the former three-term Klang MP told FMT.

Santiago said the government must show political will to address the various issues raised in the UN statement.

FMT has reached out to an aide to human resources minister Steven Sim and the foreign ministry’s corporate communications department for comment.

In the statement, the UN experts said Bangladeshi migrants were being recruited by fake companies and made to pay exorbitant recruitment fees to come into Malaysia, pushing them into debt bondage.

They said many of them find upon arrival in Malaysia that the jobs they were promised are non-existent. As a result, they are often forced into overstaying, putting them at risk of arrest, detention, ill-treatment and deportation.

The report also expressed concern at the large sums of money the fraudulent recruitment generates for criminal networks operating between Malaysia and Bangladesh.

“We received reports that certain high-level officials in both governments are involved in this business or condoning it. This is unacceptable and needs to end,” they said.

The statement was issued by a team of experts led by Tomoya Obokata, Siobhan Mullally and Gehad Madi, the UN’s special rapporteurs on slavery, trafficking in persons, and human rights of migrants.

Mohana Rani Rasiah.

In a statement to FMT, Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) migrant desk coordinator, Mohana Rani Rasiah, said labour migration in Malaysia has long been associated with criminal acts of fraud, collusion of high-ranking officials, and the “indecent and heartless exploitation” of migrants.

She said her party had in January put forward eight proposals to the government on how to address the issue.

Despite this, there are still numerous stories of jobless and hungry migrant workers who have been forced to work illegally, resulting in the loss of their documented status.

“This is nothing new,” she said.

“For many years, we have been proposing – without success – that labour migration into Malaysia be regulated through a comprehensive policy.

“Based on what is happening on the ground, it looks like there is no concerted effort to handle this huge crisis in a systematic way.” - FMT