Migrants return to Malaysian labour markets

It is good to know that Malaysia will soon open its labour market for Bangladeshi workers, after more than three years of suspension of the process. Reportedly, Bangladesh and Malaysia will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) today in this regard. While we appreciate the likely reopening of the migration process, we would also like to see the major issues that stopped labour migration from the country in the first place solved before we send our workers to the country again.

The Malaysian government froze recruitment from Bangladesh in 2018 following allegations of labour exploitation, high costs of migration and the syndication of a few agents. Now that the process is likely to reopen, the question is: Will the two governments take the necessary measures to stop these from happening again?

The high costs of labour migration is an issue that must be addressed immediately by our authorities. According to experts, the migration cost in Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world, while our workers earn one of the lowest. Reportedly, it takes more than Tk four lakh for a worker to migrate to Malaysia, although the government-fixed rate is much lower. The reasons behind the high costs, as identified by experts, are the extra payments that our workers have to make to intermediaries at various stages of the process and the "visa trade"—middlemen and agents in labour-sending and receiving countries who "sell and buy" work visas, which is prohibited by law.

There is also the issue of syndication. Since Malaysia is not keeping the market open for all Bangladeshi agents and will only select a few of them to operate, this again creates risks of a syndicate taking over the whole migration process, leading to increased migration charges and further labour exploitation. Besides, Malaysia currently does not follow the ethical recruitment model, according to which, employers should pay the full charge of labour migration and the workers will repay them subsequently. Since we are already sending our workers to Qatar under this model, we should also negotiate with the Malaysian government to do the same.

Moreover, the issue of low payment of our workers must be addressed. Although our migrants are working in many sectors that are risky and require extremely hard labour—such as in construction, mining and quarrying—they are not being paid accordingly. According to the Cost of Migration Survey-2020 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Bangladeshi workers need nearly 18 months on average to recover the money they pay for migration, while workers from other countries such as India and Nepal need much less time to repay their debt. Therefore, we must bargain for higher pay for our workers while negotiating with the Malaysian authorities, as well as other labour-receiving countries.

These are the few issues that need to be addressed by our authorities on a priority basis in order to check the high migration cost, reduce labour exploitation and prevent any syndicates from doing illegal business.