Illegal BD migrants in Malaysia suffering for delay in passport renewal

Reza Mahmud :
About three lakh of Bangladeshi undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia are suffering acutely due to a long delaying of their passport renewal work.

The undocumented workers said that they are worried over failing to cope with the Malaysian government’s ongoing special regularisation programme because of such delaying in passport renewal tasks of the Bangladeshi embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Sources said, Malaysia has started the scheme name RTK 2.0 for regularising the illegal workers there.

RTK 2.0 is a special programme to regularise foreign workers who are legally employed by qualified employers but became undocumented due to ending the passport’s tenure or changing workplaces without valid permissions.

The legalising tasks through the programme are subject to strict conditions decided by the Government through the Malaysian Immigration Department (Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia, or JIM) and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The programme started since January 27 this year and to be closed on December 31.

Bangladeshi migrants in the country said about seven lakh of undocumented foreign workers have applied so far under the programme. But the numbers of Bangladeshi workers have not been identified so far.

The migrant workers are in fear of failing to submit their applications in time as the time is closing fast.

Besides being documented, many of them failed to get several other facilities such as getting increment or changing workplace for suitable one due to delaying of passport renewals.

Bangladeshi Diasporas in Malaysia have complained to the Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal during his recent visit to Kuala Lumpur.

The migrant workers said the Bangladeshi embassy failed to assist them with their necessary services most of time.

“Mostly, while we need to renew our passports on an urgent basis, the embassy shows high indifference. They have ignored us even while we request them showing the urgency,” said one of the migrant workers to Mustafa Kamal.

“We become undocumented, due to delaying work of passport renewals. It takes five to six months for renewing a passport which is totally unacceptable. Such ignorance of the embassy created huge sufferings to the migrant workers here,” they said.

They said also that in cases of detaining of Bangladeshi migrants, the embassy does not pay any heed.

Even in cases of sending dead bodies of deceased migrant workers, the embassy failed to extend proper cooperation.

“We used to send dead bodies of our colleagues by collecting money from ourselves,” they said.

The migrants asked to keep sufficient money in the embassy to help in such cases of detaining any one or sending dead body to home.

When contacted, Mohammad Fakhrul Islam, Joint-Secretary General-1 of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), told The New Nation, “Government should posting the manpower export related officials to the embassies so that they can help the migrant workers properly.”

He said it is a long time allegation from our Diasporas that they have deprived of adequate services from the embassies.

Meanwhile, despite repeated attempt Foreign Minister Dr. Abdul Momen and Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed could not reached to get their comments in this regard.