Malaysia takes steps to reduce BD workers migration costs

Reza Mahmud :
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has taken measures to reduce Bangladeshi workers migration cost to go the country.
Anwar Ibrahim decided to cancel agent system from Bangladeshi workers recruiting process marking it as a burden to increase migration costs there.
The Malaysian Prime Minister took the decision after discussing the matter in his cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Afterwards he announced it in a press conference.
“When a Nepalese migrant worker enters Malaysia costing only 3,700 Ringgit (BDT 99,900) , then the Bangladeshi and Indonesian workers cost 20,000 to 25,000 Ringgit (BDT 5,40,000 to BDT 6,75,000). It is not fare. The workers usually take loan for providing extra migration cost and later sell forced labour for earning money to repay their debts,” Anwar Ibrahim said.
He labeled it as a ‘Modern Slavery system’.
International Labour Organisation (ILO) said that foreign workers were compelled to sell or mortgages their lands or other properties as well as take loan in high interests for collecting extra migration costs.
Finally they used to work extra over times for collecting these excess costs within the time period.
ILO marked such labours as slavery and human trafficking.
The Malaysian Prime Minister said that recruiting agents were blamed for high migration costs for foreign labours.
Malaysian market sources said that several companies of the country have passed hardships to exports their products in Europe and United States due to the allegation of using forced labours from foreign workers.
The sources said that high migration costs are behind the allegation for which the foreign workers used to sell extra labours for different companies.
When contacted, Mohammad Abul Bashar, President of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) told The New Nation on Thursday, “We have heard different information from Malaysia in this regard. I have to justify and understand the real information and then could say something about the matter.”
He said that they are trying to
collect the proper news from Malaysian government sources.
Meanwhile, some western countries suspended buying products of those Malaysian companies which used to recruit those foreign workers.
Several Malaysian hand gloves companies’ regained access in USA and European markets after refunding extra migration fees to their current and former foreign workers.
Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail visited Nepal and Bangladesh recently for discussing the way to reduce migrants workers emigration costs.
He discussed with the governments of the both countries that which procedures would be easy and effective to reduce migration costs to the migrant workers recruiting for Malaysian companies.
Malaysian employers said that they are not agreed to be blamed for extra migration costs.
They want to zero or lower cost of migration so that their image would be clean to the world.
They firmly seek assurance that the migration costs would not be hiked from the source countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia.
The Diasporas in Malaysia praises Prime Minister’s initiatives saying it is goodwill of the government.
They said no one previous government of the country had taken such a major step.
Malaysia and Bangladesh has inked a memorandum of understanding over recruiting Bagnladeshi workers to the Southeast Asian country in December19 in 2021.
Since the signing of the MoU about 32 thousand Bangladeshi workers went the country though more than two lakh demands of labours have been sent by the employers.
Stakeholders blamed recruiting agents’ syndication behind the low flow of workers. As per the MoU 25 recruiting agencies were eligible for sending workers there which later increased by 100 agencies.