'Get jobs for stranded Bangladeshi workers before recruiting more'

Summary

• Tenaganita criticises the government’s decision to resume recruiting Bangladeshi workers.

• It says thousands of legally recruited workers remain jobless and debt-ridden, having paid high recruitment fees for promised jobs that never materialised.

• Tenaganita urges the government to halt new recruitment, employ stranded workers, and reform the broken system before bringing in more migrant workers.

Tenaganita has questioned Putrajaya’s decision to resume the recruitment of migrant workers from Bangladesh.

In a statement, executive director Glorene A Das said the government should not restart the recruitment of Bangladesh workers until it resolves existing issues involving the group.

“Restarting recruitment without addressing ongoing injustices will only deepen an already unfolding humanitarian crisis,” she said.

According to Glorene, Malaysia brought in 494,675 migrant workers through legal channels between January 2022 and September 2024, including 351,683 from Bangladesh.

However, despite being promised jobs in the country, the workers were stranded in Malaysia and found themselves jobless and debt-ridden.

“Many were lured in by false assurances, having paid up to RM25,000 in recruitment fees, often through debt, only to find themselves jobless, unpaid, homeless, and at constant risk of arrest.

“The government cannot wash its hands of this gross injustice by blaming ‘rogue’ recruitment agencies.

“These workers could not have entered Malaysia for non-existent jobs without the active involvement and approval of government agencies. It is time for these authorities to acknowledge their role and take full responsibility.

“This is not mere mismanagement. This is state-enabled exploitation,” Glorene added.

She said investigations by Tenaganita revealed that there were at least 150 companies granted worker quotas despite lacking any legitimate business operations or capacity to employ migrant labour.

“Yet instead of fixing this broken, corrupt system, the government is now preparing to open the floodgates once more.”

Glorene said they strongly oppose the move to recruit more migrant workers until the government takes urgent action to address the problem.

Stop recruiting, give existing workers jobs

Among the actions Tenaganita proposed are to immediately legalise and provide job placement for stranded workers who arrived through official channels.

They also urged Putrajaya to impose a moratorium on new recruitment until the system is reformed, and to stop criminalising stranded workers who became undocumented migrants due to system failures.

“Let us be clear: these are not irregular migrants. They are documented workers betrayed by an opaque and corrupt recruitment system that profits from their suffering while stripping them of their most basic rights.

“As we have said before, Malaysia does not need to recruit new workers, not while there are thousands already in the country who are unemployed and waiting for the opportunity to contribute,” she said.

According to news reports, Putrajaya has agreed to resume the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers after barring their entry since May 31 last year.

The decision was reportedly due to thousands of them falling victim to an extensive labour scam in the country, which caused the workers to be stranded without a job and often debt-ridden.

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