Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 5, 2021 - July 11, 2021

The downgrading of Malaysia to the lowest tier in the US government’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons report shines a harsh light on migrant labour practices in the country.

A significant factor in the Tier 3 classification are the numerous claims about labour trafficking, including in the rubber manufacturing industry and palm oil sector, that were not adequately addressed, the report said.

The contentious handling of migrant labour issues in Malaysia is a long-standing problem. Various reports have highlighted that the entrenched presence of middlemen in the labour recruitment system is the main obstacle preventing the reform of migrant labour management in the country.

This was also a key finding of the Special Independent Committee on Foreign Worker Management headed by former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Hishamudin Yunus, which presented a comprehensive report to the cabinet that includes some 40 recommendations.

Its proposals have yet to be implemented and remain inaccessible to the public.

Allegations that vested interests benefit from the lucrative supply and management of migrant workers have refused to go away. For the country to move forward, this corruption-fuelled system must be dismantled.

Among the proposals to make workers’ recruitment transparent and so reduce the scope for kickbacks is to introduce an end-to-end online system for hiring foreign labour. Another that has been suggested is to allow businesses that require a lot of workers to directly recruit them from the source countries to bypass the middlemen.

This can also apply to the recruitment of domestic workers, who have become an indispensable part of dual-income households. Hassle-free hiring, as long as employment criteria are met, would mean employers are no longer at the mercy of unscrupulous agents.

Simply put, unless the political will is found to overhaul the labour recruitment system, employers both big and small will continue to count the costs. That cannot be good for the country.

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