KL amnesty for migrant workers

THE Malaysian government's amnesty programme regarding foreign migrant workers gets underway today. In normal circumstances the news should have cheered Bangladeshis working in Malaysia since it holds out a fresh new opportunity for them to carry on earning a living in the country and helping their families back home. The realities, however, are rather different. Of the five lac Bangladeshi workers currently working in Malaysia, more than three lac happen to be undocumented. That is the critical issue. The Kuala Lumpur authorities will only go for registering those documented with them. What now happens to the undocumented Bangladeshi workers is a huge question.
The problem of documentation is linked to the fact that the KL authorities will have all regular migrant workers registered on their database. That leaves out those who need to have their work permits renewed but might not be able to have it done because of their irregular status and also because neither their agents nor their employing firms are willing to speak up for them. As it is, yearly renewals of work permits involve huge sums of money which most workers must cough up despite the strains on them. Even if work permits are renewed, there is the problem of finding employers to hire them. The problem for Bangladeshi workers here is thus three-fold: they need to have valid work permits; proper employment; and documentation which testifies to their legal status in Malaysia.
Clearly, the Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur remains cognisant of these problems. The most that we here can hope for now is for the KL authorities to demonstrate a degree of leniency to workers who face documentation-related issues. On top of that, the ministry of manpower in Bangladesh can keep a channel of active communication open with Malaysia, the better to minimise the threat to our workers and to the remittances they send home.