When a Malaysian corporate hotshot fell victim to an industrial accident, there was a huge outcry in the local papers just because he was close to the prime minister's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin.

We have hundreds of injured foreign workers of Indonesian origin who had not been paid their industrial accident insurance. There are another 1.2 million foreign workers not insured by their respective employers..Who should be responsible for this?

When thousands of Indonesian construction workers suffer similar industrial accidents at construction sites, nobody seems to bother. Many still don't bother about the contractors who cheated these foreign workers of their rightful wages eventhough they exposed themselves to high-risk, high-rise construction.

Many local residents blame foreign workers for the rise in crimes and social problems; but failed to look deeper into the evils of the human traders' supply chains that monopolised the import of foreign workers. The invisible hands that control the the approval of work permits are even more cruel when exploiting these job-seeking foreign workers.

It is time that we give ourselves a thought to the lives of those Indonesian who had sacrificed themselves to build some of the most glamorous buildings to grace the Malaysian skyline. They are our unsung heroes.

The tragedy that happened to Dr Liew Boon Horng is deeply regretted. But did anybody ever thought of the real tragedy that many deceased Indonesian families need to go through in repaying the passage fees imposed by human traders? The deceased bodies were normally kept in the mortuary for months on end until the fees are paid.

It is time to take the human resources minister to task for his lack of humanity for the working class in Malaysia. Perhaps the government's foreign workers task force should be revamp to include the involvement of NGOs to make Malaysia a more caring society.

The author is coordinator of Migrant Care.