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?
When he came to Malaysia 10 years ago, Tun Min Naing was full of hope. The 21-year-old even broke off his further education as a third-year student at a Rangoon university. His goal was to help his family survive in crisis-ridden Burma.
<P>But Tun Min Naing’s
Malaysian journey ended behind bars at the Semenyih detention camp outside Kuala
Lumpur, where about 1,000 illegal immigrants wait for deportation or, in rare
cases, recognition as bona fide refugees. Several hundred are Burmese, many of
them registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.</P><P>“Living
here is terrible. But I don’t want to go back to my country,” Tun Min
Naing said, sitting with other detainees behind iron bars in the visitors’
room of the camp.</P><P>“I feel I lost the way, but there’s still hope
here,” Tun Min Naing said sorrowfully. His small spark of optimism was ignited
shortly after our interview—he was granted refugee status and allowed to
leave the camp, after two years’ internment. Now he hopes to qualify for
resettlement in a third country.</P><P>Tun Min Naing’s story is typical,
representing the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Burmese workers in Malaysia.
In a recent example of the risks facing migrants, Malaysian authorities in January
rounded up 176 suspected illegal Burmese workers on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.
They are expected to be deported once their illegal status is confirmed.</P><P>Since
Malaysia became an attractive destination in the early 1990s for immigrants seeking
work, more than half a million Burmese have arrived in the hope of earning enough
money to relieve the hardships suffered by their families in Burma, one of the
world’s poorest countries. About 1.8 million migrants from South and Southeast
Asia—especially Indonesia, Burma, India, the Philippines and Bangladesh—are
employed legally in Malaysia, while a further 700,000 are working without the
necessary papers.</P><P>The Malaysia branch of the exiled Federation of Trade
Unions-Burma estimates that about 300,000 Burmese have worked illegally here,
while 200,000 Burmese workers obtained legal status. More Burmese have sought
work in Malaysia than anywhere else in Southeast Asia, with the exception of Thailand,
where more than 1 million Burmese have found employment, legally or otherwise.</P><P>They
come to Malaysia from all parts of Burma and include members of such ethnic minorities
as the Chin, Arakan and Mon.</P><P>Working in restaurants, on construction sites,
rubber plantations and in factories, Burmese migrants fill a vital gap in local
labor markets. A Burmese visitor to Kuala Lumpur comes across countrymen everywhere
in a stroll through the city center. All 36 staff members at the BB Park restaurant
in the Bukit Bintang district of Kuala Lumpur are Burmese, and it’s the same
story at another BB outlet, where all 24 workers are from Burma.</P><P>Kyaw Min
makes up to 800 ringgits per month (US $230), including overtime, working at the
BB restaurant—low by Malaysian standards but more than 20 times the 10,000
kyat ($7.70) he earned at home. He borrowed 2 million kyat ($1,500) to pay brokers,
and took six months to clear the debt. But now he sends up to 600 ringgits ($170)
a month home to his family—his modest contribution to a hard currency inflow
from migrant workers that is of vital importance to Burma’s ailing economy.</P><P>It’s
a hard life even in Malaysia, however. Kyaw Min works a 13-hour day, from 10 a.m.
until 11 p.m. His food rations are meager; his accommodation is basic.</P><P>Nevertheless,
he counts himself lucky. Employers often renege on contracts signed in Burma,
paying workers less than half the agreed wages after they arrive in Malaysia.
The maximum a Burmese worker can earn is 1,500 ringgits ($430).</P><P>Although
contributing to the Malaysian economy, Burmese migrant workers enjoy no job security
and live in constant fear of being repatriated to Burma. Contracts provide them
with no guarantees, and very few workers are insured against illness and accident.</P><P>Nai
Shu, from Chaung Zon Township, Mon State, lost his hand one year ago while operating
a saw in a timber factory in Kalang, Kuala Lumpur. He received no compensation
and even lost his job because he was now disabled. About 60 Burmese workers had
been victims of industrial accidents in the past six months alone, according to
Yan Naing Tun, who is in charge of the Malaysia branch of the Federation of Trade
Unions-Burma.</P><P>No help was to be expected from the Burmese embassy in Kuala
Lumpur, he said. Immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines get better treatment
from their embassies, according to many Burmese.</P><P>Zay Yar Min had a three-year
contract, but was sent back to Burma late last year after only a few months in
the job. He made the mistake of complaining that the terms of his contract were
not being fulfilled.</P><P>Illegal immigrants are deported at Malaysia’s
border with Thailand, a procedure that affords rich pickings to traffickers and
crooked officials. Yan Naing Tun claims that some immigration officials “sell”
workers to trafficking groups at the Thai-Malaysian border.</P><P>Yan Naing Tun
himself was due to be deported at the Thai-Malaysian border in March 2005, but
paid 2,500 ringgits ($715) to traffickers who returned him to Kuala Lumpur. He
could have bought his way back to Burma for about the same amount.</P><P>Some
desperate deportees are trafficked to fishing boat owners—“sold like
a slave to Indonesian fishing boats,” Yan Naing Tan said. “It’s
horrible to know that a human being there is worth little more than 1,000 ringgits
($286).” </P><P>The best option for illegal immigrants is to apply through
the UNHCR for recognition as political refugees, said Yan Naing Tan. More than
20,000 Burmese migrants had now done so, and most had been successful.</P><P>Half
of them were Rohingyas, Muslims from Burma’s western Arakan State, bordering
Bangladesh. About 6,000 refugees—most of them ethnic Chin—have been
resettled in third countries such as Denmark, Norway, Australia and the US.</P><P>Tun
Min Naing, his detention camp stay now behind him, hopes to get to Australia.
If he succeeds, it will have taken him 10 years and much hardship to get there.
“You just have to keep walking,” he says, philosophically.</P>
<P><I>Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=6745&z=102</I>
Address: Wisma MTUC,10-5, Jalan USJ 9/5T, 47620 Subang Jaya,Selangor | Tel: 03-80242953 | Fax: 03-80243225 | Email: sgmtuc@gmail.com.com