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?
A report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that over the
past two decades, gross emigration of labour rose at an annual rate of six per
cent in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.
<p>"Another new trend is that the region itself is absorbing an increasing
proportion of these workers," the ILO said in the report released Friday.</p>
<p>Between 1995 and 2000, 2.6 million to 2.9 million Asian migrant workers (both
registered and undocumented) left home to work abroad, and an estimated 40 per
cent went to other Asia-Pacific countries.</p>
<p>The ILO’s director of migration programmes, Ibrahim Awad, said this was a major
change compared with the late 1970s and 1980s when more than 90 per cent of
the migrants found jobs outside the region.</p>
<p>"In those decades, the Gulf States and Europe were the leading destinations,"
he said.</p>
<p>According to the ILO, the global trend towards the feminisation of labour migration
was most evident in Asia.</p>
<p>It said female migrants from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka made
up between 60 and 80 per cent of all migrants while South Asian women were increasingly
moving out to work.</p>
<p>While most of the women workforce still favoured the Middle East, they were
also moving to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Mauritius and Maldives.</p>
<p>According to the agency, current admission policies still provide more opportunities
for those willing to do the jobs that native workers vacate, whether in homes,
farms or factories.</p>
<p>But in some of the region’s most advanced economies, the need to compete with
a worldwide demand for highly-skilled workers was breaking down established
barriers that restricted access to foreign workers as movements among professionals
became more evident, the ILO said.</p>
<p>Among them is Japan which has opened up more spaces for foreign software engineers
and nurses while Singapore is offering more permanent residence for academicians,
managers and biotechnologists.</p>
<p>"For the future, the expectation is that China will also become a major
competitor for highly-trained foreign managers and scientists," the ILO
said. — BERNAMA
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