Migrant labour rights activist Andy Hall said the government’s failure to check the authenticity of companies that apply to recruit foreign workers had also contributed to the problem.
However, he said, the real issue was the government’s failure to combat the organised crime network trafficking Bangladeshi workers into forced labour in Malaysia.
“The failure by the government to check the authenticity of the companies applying for foreign workers is a major factor leading to this issue of stranded workers,” Hall told FMT.
“But this is just one part of the wider issue. The key issue here is a cross-border syndicate.”
Adrian Pereira of the NGO North-South Initiative claimed that recruitment agents had masqueraded as employers and abused loopholes in the relaxed migrant workers’ recruitment regulations, bringing in service workers and outsourcing them to subsidiaries and even other companies in other states.
Pereira said the human resources ministry’s failure to take effective action against these companies had set a bad precedent.
“It did not send a warning that the government is serious (about this issue). For us, (the defrauding of workers) is tantamount to human trafficking.
“Why hasn’t the Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants, its task force and national referral system kicked into action? Where are the exemplifying punishments for these companies? Nothing has happened,” he said.
The activists were responding to reports that 171 Bangladeshis had been arrested in Pengerang, Johor, on Dec 20 after taking part in a march to lodge a police report against their agents for failing to secure them jobs as promised.
Although the case fell outside of the human resources ministry’s jurisdiction, its newly appointed minister, Steven Sim, told FMT it would help the Bangladeshis on “humanitarian grounds” and summon the employers and agents involved to assist them in the investigation.
Pereira said tackling the issue would be Sim’s biggest challenge as he would have to identify its root cause and apprehend those responsible for manipulating the recruitment process and approval of quotas.
“He has to make sure that the labour department is clear about who is wrong in this situation,” he said.
“Is he (Sim) just going to slap them (the perpetrators) with Act 446, or is he going to charge them with human trafficking?” he added, referring to the Workers’ Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities (Amendment) Act 2019.
‘Place labour migration affairs under PMO’
Both Pereira and Hall suggested that labour migration affairs be placed under the purview of the prime minister’s office, with Pereira saying the human resources and home ministries had been proven incapable of resolving the exploitation of migrant workers.
Hall said putting migration issues under the human resources ministry was naive and impractical as the majority of Malaysia’s migrant workers were still undocumented.
He also argued that labour migration affairs could not be controlled by the home ministry alone, as migration had three aspects – national security, economic security, and human security.
“The home ministry focuses on national security, so it should not be controlling labour migration. The human resources ministry is also unsuitable as it focuses on labour and labour protection, not security, health and economics,” he said.