Andy Hall, a British citizen, said the UK government had failed to take a similar approach in tackling Britain’s own problem of forced labour practices in the agriculture, retail, hospitality and healthcare sectors.
Hall said foreigners wanting to work in those sectors in Britain must cover all of their recruitment-related costs, which would often include expensive flights and domestic travel tickets, visas, health screenings, insurance and recruitment intermediary fees.
He alleged that foreign workers in his country did not get their high recruitment-related costs reimbursed, either by their direct employers or by the major supply chain actors like supermarkets.
This was unlike a practice that was slowly becoming the norm in Malaysia, he said.
“The UK government adopts the ‘worker pays’ as opposed to the ’employer pays’ principle,” he told FMT. “And despite their indebtedness, these workers have not received remediation from their employers for their slavery-like work conditions.
“But those who migrated, at a high cost, to some of the largest Malaysian glove makers in the past now have their recruitment costs reimbursed partly as a result of advocacy campaigns and US trade enforcement action.
“There are now many more Malaysian companies adopting groundbreaking zero-cost recruitment practices as well.”
Hall also said the UK government and British glove buyers had not supported any comprehensive remediation of victims of modern slavery in their supply chains in Malaysia.
“Usually, they just order their suppliers to remediate or prefer instead to irresponsibly disengage from situations of modern slavery without contributing at all to remediation when the appalling situation in their supply chains finally makes headlines.”
Contacted for comments on Hall’s criticism, the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur said it would provide a briefing on the matter in due course.
Hall was responding to a news report in which the British envoy for migration and modern slavery, Andrew Patrick, was quoted as saying Malaysian rubber glove manufacturers must submit comprehensive audit reports that clear them of forced labour practices before they can sell their gloves to the UK’s National Health Service.