It should not have taken 171 migrant workers (although the number is closer to 3000 according to reliable sources) marching 10km on the highway, risking life, limb, and possible detention, to lodge a report against their agent who conned them for three months, rendering them jobless in this malicious game of deceit and fraud.
The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL) has outlined 11 indicators intended to help front-line criminal law enforcement officials, labor inspectors, trade union officers, NGO workers, and others to identify persons who are possibly trapped in a forced labor situation and who may require urgent assistance.
The indicators are:
Abuse of vulnerability
Deception
Restriction of movement
Isolation
Physical and sexual violence
Intimidation and threats
Retention of identity documents
Withholding of wages
Debt bondage
Abusive working and living conditions
Excessive overtime
Link to ILO document
Looking at the list, one can identify more than one indicator experienced by migrant workers in Malaysia imposed by rogue companies and agents – from deception to available jobs to physical violence in the form of starvation and abuse, to intimidation and threats, to retaining passports and work visas rendering them vulnerable to mishandling, to withholding wages and debt bondage, unsanitary living conditions, and excessive overtime.
If the rakyat and the Government do not recognize these indicators present in the way migrant workers are treated in Malaysia, then we are part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Therefore, the quick action by the Minister of Human Resources Steven Sim and Minister for Home Affairs Saifuddin Nasution in placing companies found violating the law on a blacklist and freezing incoming migrant workers’ quota is a step in the right direction, but there must be a commitment to haul rogue companies to court and not just with fines or compounds.
Apart from agents that ferry in migrant workers and companies employing them, the decay is also within the system. A Royal Commission of Inquiry would be able to independently unpick the fabric within the system that has shrouded the truth and has been an obstacle to transparency, integrity, and accountability.
The Immigration Department, Labour Department, and other agencies remain as key players to stop further rotting within the system when it comes to ensuring that agents and companies adhere to labor laws in the country when bringing in contract-based migrant workers into Malaysia. However, the irresponsible actions of a few bad apples within the Government machinery have a detrimental impact on the economy of the country, not to mention a threat to the lives of migrant workers.
In February 2023, four Immigration Department officers, believed to be conspiring with migrant smuggling syndicates, were arrested in a special operation, ‘Op Kenyalang,’ in Serian and Bintulu. In March 2023, five Immigration officers were among nine arrested for alleged human smuggling into Sabah. From 2020 to 2022, at least 24 Immigration officers have been found guilty of various crimes involving foreigners entering Malaysia according to a Dewan Negara reply in June 2023.
For far too long, Malaysians have heard horrific stories of abuses and even deaths of migrant workers at the hands of monster employers and how a light slap on the wrist for some agents and companies could be due to connections in high places and protection by those in powerful and privileged positions.
Setting up an RCI with experts in the field to gather information and conduct investigations is one of the ways to identify the root causes of the rot, who the enablers are, the paper trails, the money trails, loopholes in the law, and in recommending solutions to this decades-old problem. The RCI report must then be made public and also tabled to be debated in Parliament.
I am confident that under the MADANI Government, concrete steps to resolve the matter of forced labor and an overhaul of the migrant workers management system in a humane and rights-based approach is something achievable.