The Covid-19 pandemic has also aggravated the problem and has affected the workers a lot, commissioner Mah Weng Kwai said.

Apart from safety, he said the other complaints, when it came to forced labour, revolved around the lack of proper accommodation, low wages and excessive overtime.

He, however, could not provide the total number of complaints or a breakdown as these grouses were lodged with the various embassies of the foreign workers and during dialogues with stakeholders.

“There are many complaints, while accidents at workplaces are well documented.

“These are ongoing problems that got exacerbated because of Covid-19.

“Workers are without jobs. They cannot go home, they have no income and are stuck at the kongsi houses,” he said after a stakeholders’ consultation on forced labour issues in the construction industry.

Despite this, Mah said, based on what Suhakam was told by industry players, the problem was “not so extreme” that people “were dying from the lack of food”.

Mah said it was only proper for the government and society to look after these foreign workers in the construction industry as without them the sector could come to a standstill.

“So don’t bully them. Don’t take advantage of them or exploit them as that is what is meant by forced labour.”

He also said the government, through the law minister, is working on a blueprint to balance between business and human rights.

Fellow Suhakam commissioner Jerald Joseph said the middleman was among the root causes of forced labour.

He said based on best practices in other countries, middlemen were being eliminated and the governments were carrying out seamless hiring of foreign workers to provide better transparency.

Malaysia, he said, should also move in a similar direction.

“One of the benefits is that the (processing) fee (for foreign workers), even though it is reduced, can go directly to government coffers.”

Joseph said the country, both citizens and the government, need to show its commitment that forced labour is a “no-no”.

“Our motivation should not be purely that a western country is trying to impose sanctions on us. It should be because we have laws here that disallow slavery.”