Indifference to malpractices by outsourcing cos blamed

Malpractices by Malaysian outsourcing companies and absence of proper action by both Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur have led to a situation in which thousands of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia are leading a miserable life, returnee workers said.
Unemployed or underpaid, half-fed or even unfed at times, thousands of workers from Bangladesh who paid around Tk 2.5 lakh each for going to Malaysia, once a dreamland for them, are now caught in a dilemma whether to come back home or continue to suffer there.
Eleven such victims, who returned home on September 25 following six months of unemployment and repression by a Malaysian outsourcing company, said all this while narrating their plight in that country.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmad Badawi has assured Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed of looking into the problems Bangladeshi workers are facing in Malaysia.
Badawi gave the assurance during a bilateral meeting with the chief adviser on the sidelines of the 62nd UN General Assembly session at UN headquarters on Wednesday.
The returnees told The Daily Star that several thousand Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia are virtually unemployed. They are sometimes given some work and forced to work for longer periods but they are paid poor wages. And when they are without any work, outsourcing companies give them just one meal a day.
"Outsourcing companies hire workers from Bangladesh without arranging jobs for all them. So, excess workers are sent to jobs occasionally or kept confined," said Al-Amin Nayan, one of the 11 returnees who is from Rajshahi.
As per Malaysian rules, outsourcing companies in that country have to sign contracts with recruiting agencies in Bangladesh for hiring workers. The companies also sign contracts with factories or firms for supply of workers against service charges.
Outsourcing companies collect wages of workers from their employers and pay those to them. The companies are responsible for providing the workers with housing facilities and medical allowances but they do not do that, Nayan said.
He mentioned that he along with some others went to Malaysia through a recruiting agency that promised him a job on a monthly wage of Tk 20,000 to Tk 30,000 but once he reached Malaysia, he found the reality otherwise.
Another returnee, Mobashwer Hossain from Tangail, said,"Torture on us started when some people from the Malaysian outsourcing company concerned came to take us from Kuala Lumpur airport two days after our arrival there on April 1. They gave us papers to write down our personal information. As we made some inquiries, they beat us."
The company staff took them to houses similar to godowns."I saw several hundred Bangladeshi workers kept there and given one meal a day," he added.
The company once sent him to a factory and then to another for a few days but he was not paid for that, Mobashwer said. "When I asked for my wages, officials of the company ignored it and took my belongings."
Chan Mia of Tangail, who was imprisoned while in Malaysia , said a group of 118 and another group of 16 Bangladeshi workers spent 22 days and six days respectively in a Malaysian jail as they had visa for one month only.
Bangladeshi workers are normally given one-month visa when they arrive at Kuala Lumpur airport and allowed entry into the country.
During the one month, the workers are to undergo medical tests and if they are found medically fit, the employers get work permit from the government for the workers. Then they are given visa for longer periods depending on their job contracts, sources pointed out.
Shahidul Islam of Naogaon, another returnee, said, "We asked the labour counsellor at Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to help solve our problems but he could not."
An official of Tenaganita, a migrants rights organisation in Malaysia which conducted studies on Bangladeshi workers there, said several thousand workers are facing problems.
Over 1.5 lakh workers went to Malaysia since the resumption of recruitment from Bangladesh in August last year.