The Malaysian Insight

DEBTS and uncooperative employers are among the reasons many illegal immigrants were not repatriated under the Back for Good (B4G) amnesty programme, said a migrant rights activist.

North-South Initiative director Adrian Pereira told The Malaysian Insight that Putrajaya must also stop penalising foreigners for not having valid documents without first checking why they do not have the papers.

“From the cases we have come across, there are many ways a foreign worker can end up being an illegal, primarily through reasons that are not their fault or beyond their control.”

While the government had given these foreigners enough time to get registered to be sent back to their home countries, some were held up by their employers, he said.

“Some were only allowed to register at the last minute.

“Some also have big debts back home, as they had paid handsome sums in advance to agents who helped them get to Malaysia. They can’t return unless they can settle the debts.”

He said the high recruitment fees paid to agents and traffickers discouraged foreign workers from opting for the B4G programme, as they fear the debt trap.

This leaves them with little to no choice but to keep on working in Malaysia, despite facing the risk of becoming “irregular”.

Pereira said many of these undocumented foreigners are not staying on willingly, adding that the government should relook the “illegal” label.

“The ‘illegal’ label denies them the benefit of the doubt, and negates their access to justice or their right to seek redress.”

The term dehumanises foreign workers and does them an injustice when it comes to determining their actual immigration status, he said.

“Often, minimal or no investigations are done to find out how or why they became illegal workers in the first place.”

According to the Immigration Department, more than 190,000 undocumented migrants were repatriated under the B4G programme, carried out between August 1 and December 31 last year.

Despite the government having conducted several amnesty and rehiring programmes over the years, there has been no drastic change in the number of irregular foreign workers in Malaysia, said Pereira.

“Another common reasoning given for the Human Resources Ministry’s failure to protect foreign workers’ rights is that they do not have enough labour inspectors.

“This reason does not seem plausible because even with the current labour inspectors we have, foreign workers are still very much unprotected despite the labour inspections conducted.

“Studying the chronology of events, one can only question if the government is sincere in its labour reforms, especially in resolving labour issues in the supply chain.

“Hence, we can understand why foreign workers abscond into ‘irregularity’ when disputes arise or when they are put in forced labour conditions.”

Apart from the ineffective management of these workers, Putrajaya has also failed to resolve the issue of human trafficking, he said.

Citing the US Trafficking in Persons Report, he said Malaysia has been in the Tier 2 category for two straight years.

Tier 2 countries have not fully met the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards, but are making significant effort to do so. – January 11, 2020.