Around 200 Malaysia job seekers left in the cold

Around 200 Bangladeshi workers who went to Malaysia during November 26 and December 10 last year are living in cramped conditions without proper food and jobs they were promised in Shah Alam, a Malaysian city.
The Star Online, a Malaysian newspaper, on January 13 meanwhile reported the workers have been left in the lurch when their company suddenly terminated their employment or the outsourcing companies hired them without any guaranteed jobs.
The Bangladeshis are pleading with the authorities to help them, it said.
One of the Bangladeshis, Nuruzzaman Pada, 36, said out of the 200 workers hired to work at a car component-making factory in Shah Alam, only 30 got jobs. They were provided accommodation at the agency's office.
The other 170 were squeezed into three three-room flats in Section 25 with barely space to stand. The Malaysian agent only provides rice and lentils every few days with rations enough for only one meal a day.
Another Bangladeshi, Kazi Shafiq, 25, said two of his housemates contracted jaundice and another vomited blood recently due to the unhygienic conditions.
The agent has yet to send most of the workers for compulsory medical check-ups, while the sick were not promptly attended to, the newspaper reported.
Moshiur Rahman, 32, said they paid agents in Bangladesh between RM 12,000 and RM 15,000 each to come to Malaysia, and many took loans to pay the fees.
"I have a wife and two children in Bangladesh who are depending on me to send money home but without a job I cannot send them anything. I am worried how they will survive."
He further said the workers were promised a monthly basic salary of RM 550 and about RM 250 more in allowances and overtime.
They also claimed the local agent took away their passports, employment agreement forms and about 40 mobile phones.
Shah Alam police official Mohammad Shariff Wahid said they would be interviewing the local agent.
"We will also be contacting the Labour Department and the Bangladesh High Commission to look into the matter," he said, adding that those who had their mobile phones confiscated by the agent should lodge a police report.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government yesterday extended the suspension period for six more months of collecting job demand letters by nine recruiting agencies as the workers the agencies sent were subject to various forms of abuse and cheats in Malaysia.
The agencies are Golden Arrow, Morning Sun, Akhwan Trade International Ltd, Sarkar Recruiting Agency Ltd, GMG Trading (Pvt) Ltd, Paradise International, Matco Enterprise, Dahmashi Corporation Ltd and Celebrity International.
"We earlier suspended the agencies' jobs of collecting job demand letters for three months because they could not take care of the workers they had sent to Malaysia," Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday.
"We extended the suspension period up to June 30, as they are yet to address the issues."