Sending workers to malaysia: US observing labour syndicate issue closely
The US has been closely watching the development centring the involvement of a controversial syndicate for recruiting labour from Bangladesh to Malaysia, said a US official in Dhaka.
"Yes, we have been watching over the last several months the developments... reading news reports," she said at a background briefing at the capital's American Center yesterday, ahead of the release of US State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2022 next week.
The official said they know that an agreement was signed by Bangladesh and Malaysia for labour recruitment several months back. She said she does not want to comment on specific relations between the two countries because it is a bilateral issue.
However, she said that they recognise the countries' vulnerabilities, whereby people can fall victim to trafficking, and this is not only relevant for Malaysia but for the Gulf and Europe too.
The comments came in response to a question on whether the US is observing or discussing the issue of a syndicate of 25 recruiting agencies, which the Malaysian government has been pushing for recruiting Bangladeshi workers.
The then Mahathir-led government had frozen labour recruitment from Bangladesh to Malaysia in September 2018, because a syndicate of 10 recruiting agencies were sending workers to Malaysia by charging each of them up to Tk 4 lakh, even though the official cost was fixed at Tk 39,000 in a deal signed in 2016.
The anomalies in recruitment also led to forced labour and labour trafficking, and debt bondage, Mahathir had said.
After over three years, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the countries last December, but labour recruitment has yet to start due to the syndication issue.
Bangladesh wants all eligible agencies to be allowed to recruit workers to Malaysia. The Malaysian government, however, sent Bangladesh a list of 25 recruiting agents. There are allegations that one Dato Amin, a Bangladeshi-born Malaysian citizen, is behind the syndication. He is also reported to be behind the syndicate of 10 agents during the 2016-18 period.
Over a week ago, Malaysian Anti-corruption Commission raided the office of Bestinet, an IT firm owned by Amin, in Malaysia. The firm provides IT support for the recruitment of migrants from Bangladesh.
Asked about the TIP report, the US official said she was not going to say what tier Bangladesh falls in the report this year. But, the country was in Tier-2 for the last two years. Before that, the country fell under Tier-2 Watch List for three consecutive years.
TIP has three tiers – Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-2 Watch List and Tier-3, with Tier 1 being the best category in terms of taking actions against human trafficking and Tier-3 being the worst.
Any country falling in Tier-3 faces sanctions on development assistance.
Asked how the US government assesses the situation in Bangladesh, the official said generally the US and Bangladesh have good partnership in anti-trafficking cooperation. The measures include creating awareness, investigation and prosecution, and victim support.
TIP Report 2022 will be its 22nd instalment and will cover 188 countries, including the US. Trafficking means falsifying to, coercing and defrauding people for employing or transferring them from one place to another for labour or commercial sex. This can happen within a country or from one country to another.
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