The Malaysian Insight

THE government’s Back For Good (B4G) programme to send back illegal foreigners is only a short-term solution to the migrant workers issue, said activists.

They said the government must realise that such amnesty programmes have been abused and turned into profit-making ventures by some in the past.

Instead, they said, a more systematic and streamlined recruitment and hiring process needs to be in place.

Malaysian Community Care Foundation (MCCF) chairman Halim Ishak said the government needs to come up with a better way to address the issue.

“Our hope is that the present government will have a more effective approach. MCCF has compiled data through our research on funeral funds for foreign workers and have devised a wholesome plan to overcome the issue of influx of foreign workers in Malaysia,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

He hopes the home minister will consider the group’s proposal on the matter.

The MCCF provides a lifeline for migrant workers, including legal aid to repatriate victims of human trafficking and bodies of undocumented foreigners.

Under the B4G programme, the Immigration Department has sent back more than 180,000 undocumented migrants between August 1 and December 31, 2018.

Prior to this, the government had conducted a rehiring programme for undocumented foreign workers in 2016.

The programme was conducted by MyEG Services Sdn Bhd, Iman Resources Sdn Bhd and Bukti Megah Sdn Bhd.

Halim also said MCCF has collected the data of 42,000 foreign workers during the course of its research, which began in 2015.

The data have been channeled to the police for vetting to determine if the person has criminal records and was involved in terrorism.

“It is MCCF’s responsibility to ensure that all foreigners, both legal and illegal are not involved in criminal or terrorism activities to preserve national security.

“Although there are many challenges and denigration coming our way, MCCF will ensure that it draws up a strategic plan to overcome the issue or foreign workers in this country,” he added.

North-South Initiative director Adrian Pereira, meanwhile, said there are also underlying structural issues such as a “broken foreign labour recruitment and hiring process” that have contributed to the problem.

According to the Department of Statistics, there were 2,059,382 foreign workers in Malaysia from 13 countries working in six sectors as of May 31, 2019.

The 13 countries are Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Laos.

They are employed in the manufacturing, construction, plantation, services, agriculture and domestic workers sectors, and are holders of the temporary visit work pass.

The pass is issued by the Immigration Department and is tied to a single employer in each sector.

Pereira said the Human Resources Ministry is in charge of policies related to foreign workers while the Home Ministry deals with the issuance of employment permits and other immigration matters.

“Human Resources Minister M. Kula Segaran complained that even though the applications to hire foreign workers are made via his ministry, the final approval lies in the hands of the Home Ministry,” said Pereira.

“While we do not want to speculate about the degree of practical cooperation between both the ministries, we believe that when the worker faces a dispute with his employer or labour agent, the mismatch in roles between the two ministries and the ineffective bureaucratic procedures put the foreign workers in a very precarious situation and hence increases the probability of him or her becoming irregular,” he added.

The employer also has the right to unilaterally cancel a worker’s permit through the Immigration Department and have him or her deported in the event of a labour dispute.

The employer is only obliged to inform the Labour Department within a few weeks after cancelling the worker’s employment permit, Pereira said.

“As the Immigration Department is not obliged to cross-check with the Labour Department if there are any outstanding disputes before the worker is deported, employers and labour agents have been taking advantage of this glaring loophole in the management of foreign workers,” he said.

“And hence, when the migrant worker faces a dispute that is almost impossible to resolve fairly, his only option is to abscond and find work with other willing employers and agents,” he added.

He said the trend and cycle has been going on for more than two decades and has snowballed into the influx of irregular foreigners in this country, which stands about five million today.

Pereira said there are also loopholes in the recruitment process of foreign workers which are being abused by bogus employers.

“The bogus employers are Malaysians who are usually paid a hefty sum to loan their names and identify card numbers for the permits for foreign workers to be brought in and then irregularly work for other employers.

“When the foreign worker does not have a real working relationship with this bogus employer, he or she becomes very vulnerable and can quickly become irregular when the people they work for keep rotating them and selling them to other agents across sectors,” he said.

He said this has led to several unresolved labour issues such as unpaid wages, forced overtime and unpaid leave among others. – January 12, 2020.