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?
Bangladesh Workers Welfare Centre (BWWC), an organisation in Malaysia
working for upholding the interest of Bangladeshi workers there, said every agricultural labourer could get a salary of Taka 11,000 to Taka 22, 000 per month if they work in the rubber plantation sector.
<P>"There is a huge demand for labourers
for Malaysian rubber plantation sector, and Bangladeshi real agricultural labourers
can satisfy the demand as they are hard workers," said AKM Golam Ahad, chairman
of BWWC at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity here on Saturday.</P><P>He
said BWWC has taken steps to send a group of Bangladeshi agricultural labourers
to Malaysia at a cost of Taka 40,000 each. "The labourers are signing agreements
for three years at the first stage, but the agreement is extendable," he
added.</P><P>The BWWC chairman, an expatriate Bangladeshi who has been living
in Malaysia since 1977 and got Malaysian nationally, said in the past many Bangladeshis
went to that country taking jobs in the rubber sector, but later they had to leave
as they did not belong to agricultural sector in Bangladesh.</P><P>"This
fact had a bad impact on the recruitment of Bangladeshi labourers in the rubber
plantation sector in Malaysia, but we are trying to erase the bad image by sending
real agricultural labourers from here," he said.</P><P>© Copyright 2003
by ittefaq.com</P><P><I>Source: http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_33464.shtml</I>
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