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The plight of low-skilled migrants in Malaysia

Nahela Nowshin
LOW skilled Bangladeshi workers both at home and abroad face persisting challenges to their livelihood in the form of unemployment, extortion, exploitation, unsafe working conditions and a lack of job security. On January 29th, an overloaded ferry carrying illegal migrants to Malaysia sank off the coast of Bangladesh. After the boat capsized around 2.5 km offshore, emergency workers rescued 32 Bangladeshis in the Bay of Bengal but many others remain unaccounted for.
Poverty, underemployment and a surge in our youth population catalyse international migration from Bangladesh due to financial reasons. International labour migration from Bangladesh began to expand in the '90s beyond GCC countries to include countries such as Lebanon, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, etc.
Malaysia is the most important destination of these newer destinations having received around 700,000 Bangladeshi immigrants from 1976 to 2009 according to the Migration Policy Institute. Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh in 2012 lifting a four year ban on import of Bangladeshi workers who have been filling up industries of low level, menial jobs that Malaysian locals continue to shun. The complex circumstances responsible for the plight of our low skilled migrants in Malaysia (and elsewhere) must be brought to light and given their deserved attention.
Desperate, unheard and exploited According to the Financial Express, Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina's visit to Malaysia in December of 2014 resulted in "partial abolition of visa requirements" and an amendment to the MoU of 2012. Workers complained that the PM's trip hardly tackled tangible issues affecting their day-to-day lives. For example, issues concerning workers' abuse, Dickensian conditions of forced labour, and the inevitability of them turning into illegal aliens once MRP expiry dates have passed were not discussed. Although the new MoU will allow for another 12,000 workers to be employed in Sarawak, Malaysia, the fate of 1.4 million still waiting to go to Malaysia despite their registration having been completed two years ago remains undecided.
The Malaysian government relies heavily on foreign labour to fill low-wage jobs in mainly the plantation and construction industries. The News Today recently reported that the failure to expand overseas labour market beyond these sectors led to the rise of "unsafe and illegal labour migration" signalling a failure by the government to send workers through legal channels despite there being a G2G agreement between the two countries. The Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit (RMMRU) of Dhaka University also observed that workers migrating to Malaysia decreased by a dismal figure of 5,191 only in 2014 as a result of the G2G agreement. Workers blame the Bangladesh High Commission for the sluggish recruitment processes under the G2G system.
Despite Bangladesh having signed an antihuman trafficking MoU with Malaysia, instances of human trafficking continue to make headlines. The UN estimates that 50 to 150 Bangladeshis travel to Malaysia every week via dangerous, illegal sea routes. An increase in illegal migration via the Bay of Bengal can be attributed to limitations potential migrants face such as the scarcity of sectors available to low skilled workers and a cap on the number of people that can legally enter the country. The Financial Express reports that over 0.12 million job-seekers were smuggled out of the country in 2014 alone. According to the report, human traffickers charge only Tk 50,000 to 60,000 whereas going through legal means can cost one up to Tk 0.4 million.
The large number of undocumented workers in Malaysia and elsewhere may be explained by the role played by intermediary scouting "agents" who connect potential migrants to employers abroad. These agents negotiate on behalf of migrants with recruitment agencies which in turn negotiate with employers or other intermediaries abroad. This long chain of components involved in the recruitment process results in high transaction costs for rite worker. According to a 2009 survey conducted by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Bangladesh, these middlemen generate almost 60% of the costs borne by migrants who wish to go abroad. Because of these rising costs, employers overseas prefer recruiting undocumented workers over documented ones in order to avoid large expenses.
Institutional inefficiencies
Remittances from Bangladeshi migrant workers reportedly brought in over $14 billion in 2014 surpassing those of the RMG sector. According to a report published by the Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA),
Bangladesh is one of the top remittance receiving countries in the world. The stability of remittance inflow - the most important variable contributing to our foreign exchange reserve - is therefore crucial for the well-being of our economy, and our migrant workers
must be protected.
According to Wall Street Journal, about 1.3 million of an estimated 2 million undocumented workers registered with the 6P Amnesty Programme created for the legalisation of illegal immigrants. The program, which has already ended, resulted in 500,000 workers receiving legal documentation while nearly 330,000 were deported. Tenaganita, a foreign worker NGO, blames the lack of transparency in the program's biometric system for making it hard to determine the fate of workers who neither obtained permits nor were repatriated. The NGO also cites the lack of monitoring of the program for giving rise to fraudulent 6P agents. Branding the program a ■fiasco," the executive director of Tenaganita said that such malpractices lead to the exploitation of workers and employers alike.
In 2008, the IOM initiated an agreement between the representatives of recruitment agencies from nine Asian countries (including Bangladesh) to promote 'ethical and professional recruitment practices." Although the formation of the Alliance of Asian Associations of Overseas Employment Service Providers from this meeting committed to said practices, it did not specify what exacdy "ethical recruitment" entails.
The Moll alone is unlikely to curb illegal immigration unless underlying causes are addressed. Some of these issues are insufficient maritime security enabling illegal entry through sea borders, the absence of clear foreign labour policies and the lack of capacity building entities that help potential migrants with language barriers, vocational training, and an understanding of foreign labour laws and workers' rights. Similarly, the G2G agreement is unlikely to succeed unless effective implementation and monitoring of activities by both private and governmental bodies are ensured to tackle problems such as human trafficking, shortage of sectors available to migrants, unethical recruitment, etc. Strategic coordination between bodies such as Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) and Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) is also imperative in order to protea our workers' interests.
The writer is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles.