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?
Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn made this statement at a working session
held with Huynh Thi Nhan, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Labour, War Invalids,
and Social Affairs in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
<p>He appreciated Viet Nam’s efforts in providing vocational and language
training and knowledge of Malaysian customs before sending them to work in Malaysia.</p>
<p>He wanted the two sides to hold annual meetings to review the implementation
of agreements, discuss measures to resolve outstanding problems and promote
co-operation in labour supply between Viet Nam and Malaysia.</p>
<p>Deputy Minister Nhan praised the cooperation and assistance provided by the
Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources in solving problems related to overseas
Vietnamese workers.</p>
<p>She requested Malaysia to issue visas having 6 to 12 month validity instead
of one month for Vietnamese businesses that handle issues related to Vietnamese
workers in Malaysia. Over 100,000 Vietnamese currently work under labour contracts
in Malaysia.</p>
<p><b>Online certificate</b></p>
<p>The Malaysian Human Resources Ministry has decided to issue online the Certificate
of Eligibility to foreign workers who attend training courses in their home
countries in an effort to prevent duplication of such documents, sources said.</p>
<p>According to Malaysia’s news agency Bernama, Human Resources Minister
Fong Chan Onn said the online system, which has been in place over the past
six months, would be made operational on receiving consent from interested countries.</p>
<p>The former system of granting such certificates manually was prone to fraud
as there was no proper monitoring system in place.</p>
<p>The online certificate issuing system was expected to enable local authorities
like embassies, immigration offices and centres conducting induction courses
to check the eligibility of workers, the minister said, adding that it would
also speed up the emigration registration process which now takes two to three
weeks. —VNS
Address: Wisma MTUC,10-5, Jalan USJ 9/5T, 47620 Subang Jaya,Selangor | Tel: 03-80242953 | Fax: 03-80243225 | Email: sgmtuc@gmail.com.com