'Legalise migrant workers here before bringing in more'
A migrant activist in Penang has questioned why the Malaysian government is not allowing refugees here to work and instead plans to bring in 1.5 million more Bangladeshis.
K Sudhagaran Stanley, coordinator of NGO Migration Working Group in Malaysia, said the country has more than 100,000 refugees that are not allowed to work.
“If there is a demand in the workforce, why is the government not allowing these refugees to cover that shortage?” said Stanley, who is also former chair of the Commission for Migrants and Itinerants in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, an NGO.
“There are also roughly three million undocumented workers, many of whom are working in sectors not approved by the government,” he said in a statement today.
“Why is the government not legalising these workers and placing them in the correct sectors that are in need of foreign labour?” he asked.
Stanley was referring to the recent announcement by the Malaysian government on its plan to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers to fill up vacancies in various sectors here.
He described the situation as 'sad news' for the Malaysian workforce, the unemployed and human rights supporters.
"Malaysia’s human rights record in regard to migrant workers, trafficked victims and refugees continues to be at an alarming level," he said.
"The influx of 1.5 million workers from Bangladesh will only make matters worse and increase recorded cases of abuse towards migrants," he said.
He pointed out that issues such as non-payment of wages, illegal deduction of salaries, unhealthy and deplorable living conditions, physical and mental abuse, lack of healthcare facilities, forced labour and harassment by authorities continue to haunt foreign workers in the country.
'Something fishy'
With an increase of migrant workers into the country, these issues would only increase as many employers continue to abuse their workers.
"Even while many government policies are rolled out to better protect workers, in reality, migrant workers continue to suffer," Stanley said.
He said there were an estimated five million migrant workers, including undocumented ones already in the country.
In a country with fewer than 32 million citizens and a workforce of roughly 13 million, the ratio of the foreign and local workforce would come close to 50-50, he pointed out.
“This is alarming and contradicts the 11th Malaysia Plan to reduce dependency on migrant labour by 15 percent before the year 2020,” Stanley said.
“Something smells very fishy in this and indeed looks like another master plan of cronies and some corrupted government officials to make money out of the poor migrants,” he said.
“Employers will also now have more resources to deny Malaysians work and will continue to choose migrants instead,” he added.
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