Tenaganita questions proposal on workers from Bangladesh PETALING JAYA: Tenaganita has questioned the proposal to bring a large number of Bangladeshis into the country especially when authorities have announced that they will soon be going hard on illegal immigrants. (Tenaganita is a non-profit Malaysian NGO that protects and promotes the rights of women, migrants and refugees) Tenaganita executive director Irene Fernandez said the decision to bring in 1.4mil Bangladeshi workers was baffling and illogical. “One minute they are talking about a crackdown and the next they are talking about a massive recruitment. I don’t see the logic in this process,” she said. She said the current system causes many legal workers to become undocumented because irresponsible employers did not renew their work permits. This means that workers who have come here legitimately would be targeted and sent back, while the country recruits a fresh batch of workers. “Existing workers should be re-registered. Why are they going after the workers when the employers should be held responsible?” she said. Last week, Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the Bangladeshi workers would be recruited in stages from early next year and would be issued special identity cards (IC) that contained Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and biometric technology. The workers are supposed to be brought in to counter the shortage of workers in the plantation and services sectors via a government to government (g2g) agreement. The government also said they would be going hard on illegal immigrants from this Sunday for deportation. Fernandez was afraid that there would be a repeat of the fiasco in 2007 where thousands of Bangladeshi migrants were left stranded when their employees failed to pick them up from the airport. She also hoped that the massive recruitment of workers was not a money making exercise. In the past, outsourcing companies have been accused of being involved in human trafficking. “Where is this shortage or workers? There doesn’t seem to transparency in the recruitment and placement of these workers,” she said. Fernandez was also worried about the RFID monitoring, saying that the government were treating the migrants like criminals. “If we see them as threat to security, we should not bring them in. Why are we contradicting ourselves?,” she said. Malaysia imports labour from Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka Source:The Star Online , Malaysia, published Aug. 28
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:07:11 +0000
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