Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus’ one-on-one meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Dhaka on Oct. 4 marks a new beginning, given that they are old friends and profess shared ideals.
Bangladesh is working to rectify previous blunders in governance and make it a new country following a mass uprising. Yunus, a Nobel laureate who pioneered microcredit, gender equity, and social business, speaks about peoples’ welfare, instead of profit.
Anwar is known for his Madani vision, which is an acronym comprising six core values — sustainability, prosperity, innovation, respect, trust, and compassion.
“Malaysia must be known as a Madani nation that is prosperous, fair, and rejects any form of cruelty towards any individual or race,” Anwar said while unveiling the concept in Putrajaya on Jan. 19 last year, just three months after assuming office.
The Malaysian leader stressed that growth and development must be attained through a larger context of the humane economy that prioritizes the needs of the people.
In Dhaka, Anwar recognized Yunus’s contributions to uplifting marginalized people, while also telling the media that he wants migrant workers from all countries in Malaysia to do decent work and not as modern-day slaves.
These are all extremely important words for Bangladesh as some 800,000 of its nationals work in the Southeast Asian country. Many among them end up being exploited from the moment they’re recruited, through the whole cycle of migration.
The latest example is of some 450,000 Bangladeshi workers selected by the Malaysian government through a cartel of 101 recruiting agencies. Each of these workers is said to have spent $4,500 to $6,000 for a job in Malaysia. Many of their employers were reportedly bogus but managed to get approval for recruiting foreign workers by allegedly paying bribes to certain officials in both Malaysia and Bangladesh.
The whole process turned out to be dubious and yet, there are no clarifications so far on what basis the recruitment agencies came to be selected.
As a result of such rampant irregularities, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia remain either jobless, underpaid, or unpaid. Many among them are stranded on foreign soil as their passports are in the custody of their employers. They are not provided adequate food or proper accommodation.
A study by US-based non-profit Verite, published in May, said 96 percent of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia reported facing risks of exploitation resulting from recruitment debt. They live in horrible conditions. What is this if not modern-day slavery?
This is not the first time that the recruiting agencies have been involved in the exploitation of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia. In 2016-18, a syndicate of 10 agents was selected by Malaysian authorities after the failure of a government-to-government agreement for recruitment in 2012-14, attributed to strong lobbies close to the upper echelons of the power structure.
The flow of labor from Bangladesh to Malaysia has been halted time and again since the 1990s because of such lobbies. A serious research effort is required to unearth the actual benefits for migrant workers — how many of them were pulled out of poverty by taking the migration route and how many ended up in hellholes? The findings will reveal shocking details.
For now, any sensible person watching labor migration in the Bangladesh-Malaysia corridor will say that Malaysia should immediately dismantle the syndicate of 101 agents. The choice of recruiting agencies should be left to genuine employers as this will create a competitive business environment.
Besides, the employer-pay model must be followed, i.e. the costs of recruiting foreign workers must be borne by the employer. Making migrant workers pay the costs is a violation of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention.
If this private sector model does not work, the authorities must go for the Employment Permit System in South Korea where no private agent is involved in recruiting foreign workers. This system is based on the belief that humans cannot be a subject of trading. It was introduced in 2004 after realizing that private sector involvement ultimately led to massive exploitation and brought a bad name to South Korea.
Apart from the policy aspect, the harsh reality being faced by Bangladeshi migrant workers must be addressed with compassion immediately. The situation of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia, especially the ones who migrated during 2022-2024, is horrible, said Mohana Rani Rasiah, a coordinator for the migrant workers’ desk at the Socialist Party of Malaysia.
Malaysia’s labor department concedes that very few migrants facing problems approach for help. It is very difficult for vulnerable workers, many of them not having passports or work permits with them, to file formal cases. Settlement of these cases takes a long time.
Also, Rasiah recalled, how while facilitating the filing of cases for a group of migrant workers in Kuala Lumpur, employers threatened them and most of them ended up withdrawing their cases.
Therefore, it is important that the labor department develops a special mechanism to reach out to migrants. The Bangladesh High Commission (embassy) in Malaysia also needs to play a proactive role toward this end. Indeed, the high commission should enhance its capacity and logistics to support the migrants in distress, she said.
Unless and until this is done, workers will continue to suffer, remain indebted, end up being detained by police, and continue to languish in jails or exploitative workplaces. Their situation can only be defined as debt bondage, forced labor, modern-day slavery, and even labor trafficking.
The continuation of such a dire situation for migrant workers would mean the words and professed ideals of Yunus and Anwar would remain just that — mere words!
Malaysia will not be able to clean the stain of importing forced labor through human trafficking, while Bangladesh will not be able to achieve its new objective of building a nation that is free of discrimination.
If the two great minds fail, it will be the failure of humanity and a victory for the criminals. The utmost hope is that the two leaders will not allow this to happen. People at home and abroad are watching them closely.
source : uca news