Overhaul migrant labour system before crackdown, says Charles Santiago

PETALING JAYA: The government has been urged to reconsider its plan to crack down on undocumented migrant workers after the rehiring programme ends on June 30. Klang MP Charles Santiago said the migrant labour management system should be overhauled first.
He said indiscriminate enforcement does not do justice for migrant workers who were failed by their unscrupulous and abusive employers. The migrant labour system is plagued by cronyism as local and foreign recruitment companies have turned migrant workers into profitable commodities, he added.
"Pakatan Harapan and industrial players have complained about lucrative concessions had been awarded to Umno-linked companies to manage migrant workers," he said in a statementtoday.
In urging Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to rethink the plan, he said many reports revealed that migrant workers were forced into undocumented status due to their employers' refusal to renew their work permits.
"Some of them ran away from abusive employers to protect their own lives. It is not uncommon to hear about cases where migrant workers are raped, tortured and killed," he said.
Citing the World Bank (2013) study, he said there five reasons why Indonesian migrant workers became undocumented.
"Irregular channels are faster and less expensive," he said. "Rigid system ties migrant workers to specific employers. Indecent working conditions, abusive practice or non-payment of salary (also are causes).
"(Then there are) migrant workers (who) lost their travel document after leaving because employers withheld their passports. Migrant workers are victims of trafficking in persons or cheated to work in Malaysia."
Santiago also highlighted an Amnesty International report in 2017 that documented a group of Nepali workers being deceived to perform dangerous works at a steel factory. They fled the company after witnessing few industrial accidents at the workplace.
They were trapped and could not return to Nepal because they could not settle debts attributed to high recruitment fee, about US$1,200 (RM 4,767.60) per person, the report said.
"There are approximately 1.9 million registered migrant workers and 6 million undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia.
In 2017, the rehiring an amnesty programme of the government only registered 161,000 undocumented migrant workers, 2.7% of total number.
The immigration raids carried out in 2017 arrested and detained more than 3,000 undocumented migrants," he said, citing the report.
This shows the rehiring programme is a failure, the government also failed to take appropriate actions against errant employers, he said.