Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
To ensure there are no glitches, they falsify approval letters complete with
the Immigration Department’s letterhead.
<p>One such case was discovered yesterday morning at the Immigration Department.</p>
<p>Department enforcement division director Datuk Ishak Mohamed said that what
gave the employer away was that the letter was not typed properly and that the
names of the six Myanmar tourists were not in the department’s record.</p>
<p>“The address of the employer was typed on top of the line separating the
letterhead and the content. It was untidy typing which we do not do.</p>
<p>“Also the names of employees should already be in our system before the
department issues the approval letter.</p>
<p>“We just discovered this and will be detaining the employer and the six
Myanmar tourists soon,” he said, adding that the six had entered the country
on Aug 26.</p>
<p>Ishak said the employer had wanted the six tourists to work as construction
workers in Klang.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters here yesterday, he said the employer when applying for
the work permit with the false approval letter handed over their passports to
the department in the morning.</p>
<p>The employer is liable to a fine of RM10,000 for every person whose visa he
applied for and a jail term of not more than five years.</p>
<p>Ishak does not believe the false approval letter was an inside job as it was
easy to forge such documents nowadays.
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