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?
By Azeman Ariffin
JAKARTA, March 16 (Bernama) — Malaysia and Indonesia are working out a mechanism to set up one channel for the intake of domestic maids from the republic, Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem said.
He said the Indonesian government had principally agreed and welcomed the move.
“We also encourage employers to apply for maids via the Labour Department as it has a list of registered foreign worker service agencies,” he told reporters after paying a courtesy call to Minister of Manpower M. Hanif Dhakiri, here today.
He said there were a total of 377 foreign worker service agencies in Malaysia.
Riot said the single channel could actually bring to realisation the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Recruitment and Placement of Indonesian Maids signed in Bali in 2011.
With the signing of the MoU, Indonesia agreed to the withdrawal of a moratorium on the sending of domestic maids to Malaysia.
“Currently, there are 4,000 maids who went through the official channel to come to Malaysia while more than 100,000 maids came via the unofficial channel,” he said.
In the one-channel mechanism, employers would only pay a security deposit (bond) of RM7,800 per maid, which meant RM6,000 would be paid by the employer while the remaining amount of RM1,800 would have to be paid by the employee, Riot said.
“The employer could get back the employee’s bond money of RM1,800 by deducting a portion of the employee’s salary but it must be done in instalment and the deductions must not exceed 50 per cent of the employee’s salary.
“At the meeting today, I welcomed the Indonesian government’s proposal to change the terms usually used – maids to domestic helpers, to take care of the worker’s image.
“The meeting with Hanif was to reciprocate the working visit of Indonesian president Joko Widodo to Malaysia last February and to deliver Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s recommendations to use only one channel for the intake of Indonesian maids,” he said.
Source: Bernama
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