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?
Immigration enforcement director Datuk Ishak Muhammad said his officers uncovered
this ploy after two Indonesian women came to the department on June 29 to verify
their workers’ identification cards.
<p>He said their cards were found to be false and both women were detained. </p>
<p>Acting on a tip-off, an enforcement team went to a house in Damansara on July
10 and picked up three people – a local man, a Bangladeshi and an Indonesian
woman – to help in their investigation. </p>
<p>The local man and the Bangladeshi were found to be selling the cards while
the woman was there to collect her card, for which she purportedly paid RM2,500.
</p>
<p>Ishak said the Bangladeshi and another man, a Myanmar national who is still
at large, were involved in producing the fake cards and were believed to be
collaborating with an outsourcing company providing contract workers to the
two hypermarkets. </p>
<p>He said enforcement workers, disguised as officers from the company, then went
to the nearby hypermarket and picked up 12 foreign workers who were employed
by the company as cleaners. </p>
<p>“The team later headed to a house in Wangsa Maju and arrested 13 more
illegal immigrants who were hired by the company to provide cleaning services
for another hypermarket,” he told a press conference here yesterday. </p>
<p>Ishak said companies engaging in such outsourcing services must check if these
agencies were licensed to provide genuine workers or risk being charged for
harbouring illegal immigrants. </p>
<p>He said unscrupulous parties – who hire illegal immigrants to work for
them and go around offering their services to unsuspecting employers –
had abused the Government’s initiative to allow firms to provide outsourcing
services. </p>
<p>“We are also aware that foreigners have found another way of making a
living in Malaysia – by making forged documents, like workers identification
cards to enable illegal immigrants to work here.
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