Wed 19 Sep 2007
I’m sure most readers of UV are already familiar with the events of the last few days involving expatriate Bangladeshi workers. A small recap:
Malaysian immigration authorities have established a makeshift camp in the car park of Kuala Lumpur’s airport for foreign workers waiting to be collected by their agents, a report said Sunday.
Immigration Department chief Wahid Don said that corralling the workers in the car park prevented them loitering in the main airport buildings and creating an “unpleasant” situation for other travellers.
“We can’t have them running around the airport and congesting the premises,” he told the Sunday Star newspaper.”
(Frankly I personally don’t like the “chief’s” tone, but am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his sympathy isn’t best conveyed in print.)
On 16th September, the Daily Star reports on a different incident:
The Bangladeshi workers who had been on a hunger strike on the premises of Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur since Tuesday alleged that men of recruiting agencies attacked and assaulted them on Friday night.
The agency goons however fled when the demonstrating workers counterattacked at 9:00pm local time, a human rights activist in Malaysia told The Daily Star yesterday.
The workers said at least 25 of them were beaten on the high commission premises.
Following the incident, the Malaysian police shifted the demonstrators numbering 100 to a safe shelter on Friday midnight.
Labour Counsellor at the Bangladesh High Commission Talat Mahmud however told private television channel ATN Bangla over the phone that no incident of attack had taken place.
17th September, the Daily Star reports:
Meanwhile, Malaysian police picked up the 82 agitating Bangladeshi workers during demonstrations on the Bangladesh high commission premises in Kuala Lumpur on Friday night and handed them over to Tenaganita, a local human rights organisation….
…a Tenaganita official in Kuala Lumpur told The Daily Star over the phone that the 82 workers are now staying at a place in Rwang, Kuala Lumpur.
“The police picked up the workers in two buses to [send them to] a far off place, but they did not agree to get off. We [Tenaganita] then negotiated with the police and kept them in a shelter,” he said.
Tenaganita is currently providing shelter to about 300 jobless workers who left the jobs as they were either underpaid or forced to work longer hours by their employers, the official added.
Even worse, the article put the number of stranded Bangladeshis at the airport (the first AFP report) at 4000-5000! I’m hoping that this is a typo.
On the bright side, the same article also reported:
Bangladesh yesterday lodged a formal complaint with the Malaysian authorities seeking stern action against Malaysian company PTC Asia Pacific for failing to provide appropriate jobs and facilities to Bangladeshi recruits…..
Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, adviser for foreign affairs, expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministries, at an emergency meeting at the ministry decided yesterday to send a team led by expatriates’ welfare secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury to Malaysia to probe the incidents regarding expatriate workers.
“Actions are also being contemplated against Bangladeshi agencies if found to be at fault,” Iftekhar told journalists following the meeting.
“We give utmost importance to any matter that involves the welfare of Bangladeshi workers. We have a great responsibility towards them. At the same time, Malaysia is an important market for our expatriate workforce. So the matter is delicate. We are looking forward to the cooperation of Malaysian authorities and all concerned,” he said.
The Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment is giving the highest priority to the recent problems of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia — particularly to the workers who had been on hunger strike on the high commission premises, Iftekhar added
While we wait for this “drama” to unfold and hope and pray that these workers get justice, let us take a moment to applaud the government for acting on this with such speed. As a rule (with many exceptions I’m sure!) it is these workers who send back a greater chunk of their incomes home than more privileged NRBs like yours truly, and boost our balance of payments situation. It’s good to see that the government taking their grievances seriously and responding to them so quickly. It’s the least the workers deserve.
What suggestions do UV readers have to help us avoid such incidents in the future?
More details here.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:54 am
RMG and remittance are very daft, adbicative means of revenue building. They are so applauded because they are all we have. Remittance reliance is the ultimate surrender. Remittance has a negative effect in a lot of cases, dont just tot up the money and have a party.
In the seventies bangladeshi engineers and docters were reknowned in places on the up like iraq. In the late 70s we even has a leader who commanded esteem with the international level people whom he met.
i suppose because so few people had heard of us, sunam was easier to acheive.
I think the foreign advisor might have some esteem abroad, though unfortunately his govt doesnt have too much power or scope and isnt been given full cooperation by its citizens. I salute his apparent balls of steel in getting to grips with this. We need senior people who are serious with dealing with problems like this, rather than the bunch of jokers that we choose for ourselves as union and political leaders.
I remember a rickshawallah in dhakas story to me. about how a whole bunch of deshis were rounded up in the aftermath of a gang rape on a malay lady. they were all jailed for years. SHW gave them support, with the whole ‘due process, hold a fliping trial not a blanket arrest you pratts’ line but my rickshaw pilot had to waste a lot of his time in jail, returning to desh with virtually nothing to his name.
‘why are you treating me like this, i am muslim’ he’d told a policeman. ‘no you are bangladeshi’ was the response.
And I darent bring up the nasty tales of bangladeshi bad behaviour and dishonesty brought up by the malaysian press on a daily basis. The bangladeshi male has been come to be known as a menace to female dignity there.
I cant begin to express how i feel about that, and I still recommend students to go there and study if they get into a decent uni.
There are good people there too. One of their profs made me distribute a rather handsome amount of sadaqat. i know a tamil dude who is into construction, one of his deshi workers died and he personally went to his gram with the body to see to his familys compensation. The chaps wife was tearful as she recounted how deshis live in all male and extremely dense accomodation and sweat their guts out serving, mainly chinese, furniture outfits that exploit their legality issues. oh and then theres the tourism sector.
The bangladeshi students of the islamic university there have a rather fantastic publication where they discuss these kind of issues with depth.
Generally i think we shouldnt export nasty desperate people to countries that we’d like good relations with. With malaysia i’d like to know if they have returned that money that tareq the wise trid to transfer over there. If we deal with the malaysia-worker scenario well, it will be a good example for work on the west asian front.
Short term - Demonstrate bargaining power with the receiving coutries.
Longerterm - Development success my dear bepshawallahs and Mufoshol growth please Dr F, spurred on possible by district scale assemblies.
Did you here the one about the deshis in makkah growing fish and veg with sewage water?
September 19th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Fugstar,
Thanks for taking the time to give us those stories. You should really think about posting these stories on your blog with references and everything.
I agree completely that remittances are a short-term way to boost our situation. In the long-run we must bring the jobs to our shores, not send our people to the jobs. But since we ARE relying on this short-term method, we better ensure that those workers don’t suffer too much.
Lastly, any good way to screen out “nasty, desperate” people?
September 19th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
im not relying on short term methods and will continue to pour ridicule and scorn and encourage better things. my malaysian droppings are on there somewhere.
i prefer to refer to real experience but not give names and specifics. privacy mainly.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am
Red faces in Malaysia
Also more on the recent development
http://www.suaram.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=672&Itemid=1
We are looking to get in touch with Irene Fernandez
September 21st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
This is appalling. These workers do God-knows-what to get the money together to get to Malaysia only to be turned back because their employers can’t be bothered to pick up their workers. What about taking action against these companies? The Malaysian government won’t let these workers out because the airport will look bad but also won’t provide the people with food or adequate bathrooms and toilets. For their immigration officials, however, the government has been kind enough to provide masks for the stench caused by these inadequate facilities. Shame on the Malaysian government. Moreover, shame on ours for being too busy arresting cartoonists who offend people’s sensibilities rather than dealing with those who cause far more harm.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:06 pm
The reports in #4 mention that the High Commission staff may have been complicit in getting these workers beaten up.
Shame on us as a nation. That’s all I have to say. You just have to compare the treatment foreigners in Bangladesh get from their embassies to this to know the shame.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:29 am
One big Bangladeshi mystery
By V.P. SUJATA
PUTRAJAYA: The Immigration Department is baffled as to how so many Bangladeshis have arrived in the country with valid work permits – but without jobs or employers waiting for them.
Most have been sent to the nearest immigration depot and are awaiting deportation.
The department believes a syndicate is bringing them into the country using legal documents.
It was responding to a recent case in which 2,000 Bangladeshis had to sleep on the floor of the KL International Airport car park because their agents or employees failed to collect them.
Non-governmental organisation Tenaganita said it was sheltering 3,000 Bangladeshis who had entered the country legally but were not given jobs, bringing the total of those in such a predicament to 5,000.
While the syndicate makes thousands of ringgit, the losers are the Bangladeshis and the Malaysian Government, which has to feed, house and deport them.
Immigration Department enforcement director Datuk Ishak Mohamed said until the newly gazetted Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was actually implemented, action could not be taken against rogue agents.
Under the Act, anyone who traffics an adult for the purpose of exploitation can be jailed not more than 15 years and fined.
And those profiting from the exploitation of a trafficked person can be jailed not more than 15 years and fined between RM50,000 and RM500,000.
A date for the implementation of the Act has yet to be set.
The recent case of the 2,000 Bangladeshis is part of the problem created by rogue agencies.
Curiously, all those coming in without employers are Bangladeshis.
Ishak said that if it was the Bangladeshis’ plan to enter the country with legal permits and then look for jobs, it had backfired because they could go no further than the immigration depot.
A KLIA immigration spokesman said the car park where the foreigners were stationed was unused and was now being renovated to become the main counter for foreign workers entering the country.
About 800 to 1,000 people could be accommodated at this area at one time, he said, although the number of workers likely to arrive daily could not be estimated accurately.
Over the past month, about 2,000 arrived daily, he added.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/9/23/nation/18972319&sec=nation
September 25th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Is it only me or others would concur that majority of our workers are treated inhumanely mostly in Islamic countries, percentage wise our workers rarely face such torment in a western country or so called the Christian nations (even if it occurs the authority takes immediate action once a complain is lodged, which is rarely the case in a Muslim country), this is truly appalling to say the least, where is the outrage from our mullahs in this regard? Are we to assume that justice & humanity is not present in these Islamic countries, a recent investigation report in NTV showed numerous young girls from Bangladesh engaged in adult entertainment industry in Dubai, I wonder where is the outrage from my fellow board members who are religious Muslim to say the least.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Bangladeshi workers and agents are immune from all daftness and responsibility for the situation they have put themselves and the country in, they are not a liability and must be treated like welcome guests indefinately because of their high standards of conduct, which has earnt them high esteem wherever they go and high skill and indispencability.
Of course, islam is the problem and religious people. poor ill skilled people are given ample opportunity in bangladesh. poor ill skilled people are treated wonderfully in the west, therefore the west is the best and we should kiss and hug their models of governance, thought, morality because therein lies the path to salvation and eternal peace.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Asif Matin bhai,
I have to disagree. What fugstar is trying to say with his clumsy attempts at sarcasm is simply this: it is hard for low-skill workers to get into the West. There is a direct correlation between skill-level and how the country treats you in general. Islam only has a spurious correlation with it, as with (most likely) democracy and everything else.
Fugstar, while I appreciate your argument, do try and not blame expat low skilled workers for the troubles they go through. Everyone who suffers has not brought it upon themselves.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Dear Asify While I appreciate your rational rebuttal but I will have to disagree with you here, there are tons of unskilled labor in the west who are treated far better then any Islamic country, I can give you tons of example of even high skilled professionals (engineers, doctors, chartered accountant etc) treated poorly in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others, it is part of the cultural norms for the Arabs, being Muslim doesn’t make any difference as you are considered a miskin, my write-up was meant to be a comparison between two cultures and by the way the rebuttal by “fugstar” doesn’t deserve any response I believe.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:21 am
Asif Matin bhai,
Yes Gulf Arabs tend to treat our people with a lot more prejudice than Westerners. However, while not being apologetic, I’m yet to find evidence that this is true throughout the Arab world. Neither is it true for the entire Islamic world either.
Levels of education, of income and of exposure to other cultures more than “Islam” or “Arab culture” probably correlate higher with better behaviour towards our workers. Otherwise, how can you explain that there are Arab Muslims (and non-Muslims as well) in the West who are ready to treat South Asians as equals? My point was not to deny the mistreatment of workers in the countries you mentioned, but to help us find the true underlying causes.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:06 am
DS reporting that 11 of 80 workers have returned.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
LABOUR-MALAYSIA: Flawed Policy Results in Flood of Migrant Workers
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 27 (IPS) - As thousands of migrant workers from Bangladesh stranded at the international airport here await deportation questions are being asked about Malaysia’s migrant worker policies and the dubious role of employment agencies.
“I landed here last week with a valid work permit and visa but there was no one at the airport to receive me,’’ said Habibur Suleiman, an IT graduate, speaking in halting English. ”I paid Taka 250,000 (3,637 US dollars) for a job as a supervisor in an electronics factory in Penang,’’ Suleiman told IPS at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
“My dreams of making it here (in Malaysia) are now all shattered,’’ said Suleiman, fear and anxiety showing on his face. ”This is all I have left for lunch,’’ he said, indicating a bottle of mineral water. Suleiman is one of some 15,000 Bangladeshi workers who ended up stranded at the KLIA airport this month — many cheated by agents and trafficking syndicates.
Overwhelmed airport authorities have converted an entire floor of the multi-storey KLIA airport into a temporary holding pen for the Bangladeshi migrant workers. A putrid stench hangs over the place. Migrant workers are everywhere, sleeping on the cement floor or lining up to use the only toilet at the shelter.
“We sleep, bathe and eat here waiting to be deported,” Suleiman said. “I came here with grand dreams, but now I am going to be sent back without a single cent in my pocket and huge debts waiting back home.”
Under current rules, the immigration authorities wait for a day or two for employers to turn up for the workers they are supposed to have contracted for. However, thousands seem to have been cheated by agents who promised jobs that do not exist.
If prospective employers fail to turn up at arrivals, as in Suleiman’s case, they are transferred to a detention camp and readied for immediate deportation. ”Even though they have valid visas and work permits, if there is no employer willing to take them, we have to deport them. That’s the law,” said Ishak Mohamed, a senior immigration department official.
Across the country, stranded migrant workers are finding it tough to survive on the meagre savings that many brought with them from their villages in Bangladesh. Some had worked without wages for several months. Others were paid a small fraction of the promised wage. Many are on low-paying menial jobs.
Migrant workers have been reported living in open fields, abandoned buildings. In in Rawang, about 30 km north of the capital, about 200 Muslim Bangladeshi workers have taken refuge in a Catholic church.
The deportation of stranded workers may be delayed by months because deportation is carried out only by the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, whose flights to Dhaka are fully booked for several months ahead.
“This is an unbearable tragedy for the workers who had borrowed heavily to come here but are now deported penniless to face mountains of debts,” said Irene Fernandez, executive director of TENAGANITA, a human rights NGO that helps migrant workers.
Fernandez said the source of the current crisis is a move by the government to allow some 200 agents to import 300,000 Bangladeshi workers this year.
“They are victims of cheating and human trafficking and should not be summarily deported,” she said. “They have legal papers and have legal status.”
Despite the many horror stories regularly emanating out of Malaysia, the country remains a magnet for foreign workers who hope to fill menial jobs that Malaysians reject.
With a small population of 26 million Malaysia is already home to three million legal foreign migrant workers, mainly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal and India. But is relative affluence continues to serve as a magnet for migrant workers.
Bangladesh has said it would dispatch a team to probe the plight of its stranded workers, but human rights activists say there is little their officials can do to alleviate their misery.
“They have no clout…it is just tough talk,” said a veteran human rights leader on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “Besides, the agents licensed to import workers are politically connected and none has ever been charged despite breaking numerous laws.”
“The control, transport and management of migrant workers is a billion dollar industry by itself,” he said. “Too many powerful people are involved.”
She also said it is illegal to deport the workers after issuing permits and allowing them to land. ”The government has violated both the law and basic human rights by holding thousand of documented workers in detention camps for deportation,” she told IPS. “The workers have permits and visas issued by the Malaysian High Commission in Bangladesh.”
Fernandez said the workers have legal status under domestic and international law. Ironically as Malaysia deports Bangladeshi workers, its construction and infrastructure development industries are crying out for cheaper migrant labour.
This is because at least three massive development projects are taking shape in the south, north and east of the country that experts say would require one million more workers.
Experts say Malaysia’s workforce of 10.8 million is insufficient to complete the three giant socio-economic projects which together cost over RM100 billion (30 billion dollars) over 20 years. One project alone, located in the southern state of Johore called Iskandar Development Region, is three times the size of neighbouring Singapore.
The government estimates that the foreign worker population will double by 2010 to six million, making Malaysia among the largest importers of migrant workers in the world.
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 am
well that one’s pretty much overwith then.
Freeze on Bangladeshi intakes
By MAZWIN NIK ANIS
PUTRAJAYA: An indefinite freeze has been imposed on employing foreign workers from Bangladesh yet again, all because there are too many problems and “headaches” created by employers and both local and foreign agents handling the workers.
The Cabinet, in its weekly meeting Wednesday imposed the freeze on the intake of foreign workers from Bangladesh with immediate effect, but those who have already submitted their applications would be getting their workers as promised.
Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, in announcing this, said the lackadaisical attitude of employers and local agents, especially in picking up the workers upon arrival had created a big problem for the authorities.
The minister said the problem was also because agents in Bangladesh, who he claimed to have been splurging massive amounts of money and collaborating with local agents to get as many Bangladeshis to gain employment here, adding social problems created by the foreign workers were also one the reasons for the freeze.
“The employers and local agents take the easy way out when it comes to picking up their employees. If the workers arrive on days close to the weekend or long holidays, they will conveniently not pick the workers up, knowing the workers are in safe hands, will be well taken care of and fed.
“Since there are too many problems arising from employing workers from Bangladesh, we have decided to freeze the exercise again,” he told reporters after chairing his ministry’s post Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Yeah I just read about it. But I really wish our foreign ministry had pursued this a bit more strongly than it did. The statement says that “employers and local agents” are to blame. The FM could have asked them to deal with that end, while assuring that we’d deal with the agents on our end.
“Social problems caused by these workers”? Could he be a bit more specific. What social problems are CAUSED by these workers? Sounds like a racist stereotype to me. From what I hear, Malaysians are apt to blame Bangladeshi workers for a host of things. I’d say that’s more of a “social problem”?
In the end, our condition won’t improve until we get a safe environment in which to invest our own capital to provide jobs for our own people. That utopian pipedream of mine never seemed further.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm
the employers speak…
Policy change on foreign workers irks employers
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) is miffed at the Government ban on Bangladeshi workers, saying that such changes made in mid-stream wreaks havoc on their planning.
“The Government is always playing hot and cold. With regards to bringing in foreign workers, they say today it’s possible, then tomorrow they say it’s not.
“This is causing havoc to our planning where human resources is concerned,” said executive director Samsudin Baradan.
He said companies conduct long-term planning and targetted their sources of labour.
Changes every year or two, he added, disrupts the planning.
“This is exactly the kind of ad hoc policy that we do not want. And we have made it known to the Government,” he said when contacted.
Samsudin also noted that these ad-hoc changes in policy on employing foreign workers happened all too often.
He pointed out that at one time it was the Indonesian workers, another time it was the Bangladeshis as they caused social problems and then there was a policy change yet again which made it okay to hire them and now again a ban.
“This is not good for the country in terms of long-term investment,” he said.
He said the Bangladeshi workers were well spread out in the different sectors including plantation, services, and furniture manufacturing.
Samsudin said that the MEF president Datuk Azlan Shah Harun would be raising this issue through Pemudah – the special task force set up by the Government to facilitate business and improve the public delivery system.
In Penang, the ban on Bangladeshi workers was welcomed as it served the interest of both the foreigners and Malaysia.
Outsourcing company IRC Global Search (M) Sdn Bhd managing director Michael Heah said the move was good for Malaysia as it would reduce the immigration problems of Bangladeshis get stranded here without a job.
It also protected Bangladeshis who forked out big amounts – about RM8,000 to RM13,000 – to agents as a recruitment fee for them to come to Malaysia, he said.
Heah said that there were now 212 outsourcing companies in Malaysia, and some companies brought Bangladeshis in without securing a job for them.
“There should be a job employment contract ready before they can bring them in,” he said.
A director of a machinery and steel company, who only wished to be known as Yeoh, however, feared that the ruling would affect the supply of skilled manpower.
“The Bangladeshis are quite competent, they have the necessary skills, and are hardworking,” he said.
He added that his company employed close to 50 Bangladeshis who make up 15% of his total workforce.
Chin Well Holdings Bhd senior manager Richard Yeap said that the Government should view applications on a case-by-case basis and not impose a blanket freeze.
“Stop the outsourcing, that’s where the main problem is,” he said.
He said that about 45% of the steel fastener’s workforce of 400 were Bangladeshis.