he unending plight of duped Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia

By Porimol Palma

At 30, Mohammad Shahjahan, a goldsmith from Bangladesh’s southern coastal district of Noakhali, became jobless as a result of Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war that crushed global economies.

“Demand for our work declined and so did the wages. I was married and had two sons,” Shahjahan said.

In August 2022, he heard people were going to Malaysia for work, so decided to move there with his brother Sattar, 27.

Shahjahan and Sattar together raised about 1 million taka (US$8,500) through loans from a bank and relatives. They were promised a monthly salary of 1,500 Malaysian Ringgit (US$320).

“Our agent told us we could also do overtime and save up to US$400 a month,” they said.

In early May 2023, they, along with a group of 80 Bangladeshis, arrived in Malaysia.

“Our passports were confiscated by the company that hired us,” said Shahjahan.

They were taken to an accommodation facility in the state of Malacca.

“I was provided 500 Malaysian Ringgit for five months but there was no work. It was the same case with my brother,” Shahjahan said.

They had to borrow money from home to survive.

A file picture of Bangladeshi migrant workers waiting in line for food donated by a goodwill charity group for Christmas outside the Bangladeshi High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo: AFP)

After five months, they were hired by a gas and oil company in Malacca, which employed them for an average of 15 days a month. “In some months, we worked only for a week. We got paid only when we worked.”

On average, they make RM 1,000 a month and spend half of it on food and other essentials.

“Our contractor charges RM 500 per month to renew the work visas,” Shahjahan said.

According to Malaysian law, the employer is supposed to pay for renewing work visas annually, which wasn’t followed in their case.

The brothers are worried now that the loan and interest on it will continue to pile up as they remain trapped in Malaysia.

Activists and researchers say between 100,000 and 200,000 migrant workers from Bangladesh remain jobless, unpaid, or underpaid in Malaysia, because of excessive hiring since late 2022, according to a May 20 report in The Daily Star newspaper.

 

Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants from Myanmar ride in a truck after arriving at a naval base in Langkawi to be transferred to a mainland immigration center in Malaysia in this file image. (Photo: AFP)

Live like prisoners

With their passports taken away and the agent refusing to provide a photocopy of their work visa, the brothers dare not venture out.

“We live here like prisoners because we fear police will arrest us as we don’t have travel or work documents,” Shahjahan said.

Meanwhile, his brother fell ill and was moved to Kuala Lumpur in early June to work in a restaurant.

“It is not known how much he will be paid and what medical treatment he will get,” Shahjahan said.

Shahjahan’s sons are aged six and two. He also has two other brothers and three sisters back home.

“I wanted to admit the elder son to school this year but could not do it because of our poor financial situation. Life cannot go on this way. I may have to return to Bangladesh,” he said.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), around 450,000 Bangladeshis migrated to Malaysia between August 2022 and May 31 this year to join 400,000 other compatriots who migrated in previous years.

Some 12 million Bangladeshis who work abroad send about US$25 billion a year as remittance, playing a vital role in the country’s economy of nearly 170 million people.

Most migrants work in Middle Eastern countries.

Malaysia is Bangladesh’s fourth largest labor destination and has recruited nearly 1.6 million Bangladeshis since 1986.

 

Malaysian Immigration’s temporary Sungai Bakap facility in Penang from which hundreds of undocumented migrants escaped in April 2022. (Photo: AFP)

Majority face indebtedness

Abraham, an independent migration researcher based in Kuala Lumpur, said most migrants work temporarily.

“Some may get work for a week or two, but that’s low-paid. They don’t have a regular monthly pay. Thus, they remain constantly worried about debt as they have borrowed large amounts of money to finance their migration,” he told UCA News.

This debt is also a reality faced by migrants who have regular jobs, Abraham, who wished to be identified by just one name, said.

A recent 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.

It says that on average, workers pay at least 544,000 taka (US$5,000), which is equal to three-year’s pay to a casual laborerin Bangladesh, in recruitment fees for a job in Malaysia.

The debt makes “it extremely difficult for Bangladeshi workers to leave an exploitative employment situation, or to seek remedy from local authorities,” the study said.

Abraham said that when “migrants are jobless, brokers promise jobs in exchange for bribes. The bribe amount ranges from RM300-1,000 and in desperation they even borrow for the bribe money.”

However, after one or two weeks, some brokers again defraud the migrants, saying that the first one or two weeks of the job are internships. Thus, they again get bribes from other jobless migrants, Abraham said.

 

Palm oil production is a key industry and major employer in Malaysia. (Photo: Wikipedia)

History of corruption, abuses

Corruption has been ingrained in the system since Malaysia formally started recruiting labor from Bangladesh in 1992 under an agreement preceded by a recruitment trial in the plantation sector in 1986.

In 1994, Malaysia signed another agreement with Bangladesh to recruit 50,000 workers annually for their construction industry.

When the malpractices, involving private agents, drew international attention, the country halted recruitment and extended an amnesty to migrant workers, allowing them to return home or get regularized.

During the Asian financial crisis, there was a decline in the number of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. Some 100,000 of them were deported in 1997.

After that, recruitment was halted until 2005 as there were numerous cases of undocumented migrants.

The recruitment started again in 2006 under a recruitment mechanism “outsourcing,” which involved Malaysian labor supply companies hiring workers from Bangladesh. These companies took a cut of workers’ wages and other benefits.

Although the migration cost fixed by the two governments was 84,000 taka back then, each migrant had to pay three times that amount.

Eventually, in early 2009, Malaysia halted recruitment.

In 2012, the two countries signed a government-to-government (G2G) deal to recruit 30,000 workers in the plantation sector, but only about 10,000 workers could obtain work visas.

Recruitment industry insiders in Bangladesh said the political and private sector lobbies from Malaysia and Bangladesh opposed the G2G arrangement, ultimately leading to its failure.

Following the 2015 discovery of large-scale irregular migration via the Andaman Sea and mass graves in jungle areas along Thai and Malaysian border, Malaysia and Bangladesh in 2016 signed another agreement named G2G Plus when private agencies again came onto the scene.

The Malaysian government selected 10 recruitment agencies out of more than 700 as proposed by the Bangladesh government.

In September 2018, the then-Mahathir-led government froze recruitment because of corruption involving some top Malaysian politicians and labor exploitation.

After nearly four years, Malaysia again opened the labor market for Bangladeshis in August 2022. The market was again closed on May 31 this year following reports of massive corruption and exploitation of migrant workers.

 

Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants from Myanmar ride in a truck as they arrive at a naval base in Langkawi on May 14, 2015, to be transferred to a mainland immigration depot. (Photo: AFP)

The culprits

Andy Hall, a migrant rights activist working on labor migration in Southeast Asia, told UCA News that high recruitment costs remain the main culprit behind migrant workers’ exploitation.

Reportedly, Malaysia had engaged a syndicate of 101 Bangladeshi recruitment agencies from August 2022 to May this year.

UN experts in a letter to Bangladesh and Malaysia on March 28 said criminal networks operate in the recruitment process and deceive the workers into paying exorbitant recruitment fees which pushes them into debt bondage.

The whole process reportedly begins with bribery within Malaysia’s human resources and home affairs ministries to obtain “fake quotas for bogus employers.”

“Subsequently, bribery extends to the Bangladeshi High Commission in Malaysia and Bangladeshi syndicated agents to facilitate recruitment approval,” the letter said.

In response, Bangladesh’s mission to the UN in Geneva on May 29 said Dhaka wanted to allow all its 1,520 licensed recruitment agencies to send workers to Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpur selected only 101 agents.

Bangladesh said allowing all its recruiting agents would have ensured transparency and fairness that were compatible with the relevant International Labor Organization standards and in compliance with Bangladeshi laws.

Insiders say the 101 agents selected by Malaysia manipulated the labor recruitment system, with political support from Bangladesh and Malaysia, to make profits.

The Malaysian Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva responded to the UN expert’s letter. However, it did not explain how or why Malaysia selected the 101 recruitment agencies in Bangladesh instead of keeping the opportunity open for all agents.

The letter said the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both countries incorporated fair and ethical recruitment practices and prohibited the withholding of workers’ passports and personal documents and access to grievance procedures.

Hall, though, said these provisions are only on paper, not in practice.

 

A member of the Malaysian Navy stands guard as a truck carrying Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants from a temporary detention centre arrives at a naval base in Langkawi on May 13, 2015 to transfer them to a mainland immigration depot. (Photo: AFP)

Continuing state apathy

Farzana Akter, 24, from Bangladesh’s northern Netrakona  district, told UCA News, that she had spent all of her savings and even borrowed money to send her husband to Malaysia for work.

“Since then, I have been paying 10,000 taka interest monthly. I had to sell my earrings and necklace. My children and I are now living with my mother as there is no one capable of looking after me at my in-laws’ house,” said Farzana, who used to work at a garment factory in Gazipur.

She now works at a road construction site for 400 taka a day.

“I keep a portion of that for my survival and pay the rest as interest to the lender,” Farzana said. “I find it hard to feed my children.”

Farzana said people console her, advising her to be patient.

“But, for how long? How long can I survive like this?” she asked.

Professor C R Abrar from the International Relations Department at Dhaka University said it is regrettable that none of the governments have investigated and plugged the loopholes in the system for over thirty years.

“As a result, migrants continue to suffer, and many face impoverishment,” he added.

Abrar, who also serves as executive director at the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, feels the system cannot be set right “unless the culprits are held accountable.”

Hall said it is regrettable that civil societies in Malaysia and Bangladesh have not been vocal enough in demanding justice for the long-suffering migrant workers.

“Bangladesh’s government as well as civil society groups should call for compensation for the damages caused to the thousands of migrant workers. Those who are in trouble, jobless, unpaid or underpaid, must be taken care of by the authorities,” he said.

source : ucanews