Labour Deal with Malaysia: KL hints at zero-cost recruitment policy
Kuala Lumpur has indicated a “zero-cost recruitment” agreement for migrant workers from Bangladesh as part of the effort to avoid risking US trade sanctions.
The terms of the new agreement, now in the final stages of bilateral discussions with Bangladesh, “will be similar” to an agreement reached with Nepal, reports Malaysian online news portal, Malaysiakini.
“When we signed a memorandum of understanding with Nepal, we said that one of the conditions is, when their workers come here, there should be no payment involved. [There should be] zero cost for the workers,” said M Kulasegaran, Malaysian minister for human resources.
“So that means plane tickets and all other expenses have to be borne by employers,” Kulasegaran said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“Why are we saying this? Because the US State Department has placed Malaysia on the Tier 2 watch list again, in its latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report last year... if you’re on the Tier 2 watch list consistently for 3 years... there will be sanctions if we continue after that,” he explained.
Malaysia, which is home to some eight lakh Bangladeshis, suspended labour recruitment from Bangladesh in September 2018 following allegations that a syndicate of 10 Bangladeshi agents -- with support from Malaysia -- controlled labour recruitment during 2016 and 2018, when recruitment cost went up to Tk 4 lakh.
Malaysia’s previous government had insisted on a selection of the 10 Bangladeshi agents in the recruitment job, but the Mahathir-led government suspended it and began a crackdown against undocumented migrants – a campaign that drew huge criticism from rights bodies who said most migrants became irregular because of employers’ violation of laws.
The new Malaysian government formed a committee to reform foreign workers’ recruitment and management, but it is not known exactly which reforms were made so far. However, last year Malaysia signed a labour deal with Nepal, stipulating that the workers will not have to pay any recruitment cost.
Meanwhile, officials of Bangladesh and Malaysia met several times last year, but they are yet to sign a new deal, though Malaysia suffers from labour shortage in its industries.
Last Sunday, Bangladesh’s Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad told reporters that he doesn’t want to send workers to Malaysia unless a low recruitment cost and a transparent mechanism come into place.
He, however, did not speak of ensuring “zero migration cost”. This policy is being promoted by the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) globally, amid widespread reports of migrant workers facing abuse and trafficking because of high recruitment costs.
Kulasegaran told reporters in Putrajaya that there are very few matters left to be resolved regarding the deal with Bangladesh.
“Only one or two matters out of 10 or 12 [are left],” he said.
“Once it is resolved, we will open the sector. The government of Malaysia is ready and willing to do that,” he added.
“We brought the moratorium so we have to lift it,” he stressed, adding that the Bangladesh government has also been working to improve its own mechanisms to prevent unscrupulous recruitment practices.
Asked about apparent delays in signing the new agreement, Kulasegaran yesterday said, “[There’s a] delay in the sense that we want certain things to be completed.”
“I’m not able to tell the press what these things were but we wanted them to comply with it, and they did,” he said. “The working group will go to Bangladesh soon and hopefully we can solve the problems as fast as possible.”
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