Malaysia job market: Bangladeshis may be given preference
Malaysia will initially take nearly 8,000 Bangladeshi workers from among the 17,000 who missed a deadline for joining due to a flight shortage.
Asif Nazrul, adviser to the law and expatriates' welfare ministries, said this after meetings with Malaysian Human Resources Minister Steven Sim and Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail in Putrajaya yesterday.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. He said the Malaysian side told him that a list of 7,926 workers has been finalised and their recruitment is being processed.
"Malaysia has decided to process soon the recruitment of 7,964 stranded workers in the first batch and as proposed by Bangladesh, the recruitment process of those workers will be handled by Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Limited (BOESL)," the Bangladesh high commission in Malaysia said in a statement.
During Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's Bangladesh visit in October last year, Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus called for the recruitment of the 17,000 workers who had visas and made payments but could not make it by May 31, 2024, the deadline set by the Southeast Asian country, because of a flight shortage amid the rush.
Nazrul, in a video posted on Facebook, also said Malaysia will hire 1-1.5 lakh foreign workers, and that he requested Human Resources Minister Sim to prioritise recruitment from Bangladesh. The Malaysian minister said he would consider the matter.
Sim also reaffirmed Malaysia's commitment to remain an ethical employment destination by ensuring that foreign workers have access to social protection, welfare, and skills training, in line with the principles of compassion, justice, and well-being under the Malaysia Madani framework.
Lutfey Siddiqi, the special envoy of the chief adviser on international affairs, accompanied Nazrul in the meetings.
Currently, as per Malaysian data, about nine lakh Bangladeshis are working in Malaysia. They include nearly 500,000 who travelled to the Southeast Asian country through 101 agencies selected by the Malaysian government for recruiting Bangladeshi workers since late 2022.
On March 12, Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission sued the owners of 12 of these agencies, along with former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, on charges of embezzling and laundering Tk 1,128 crore through a syndicate that overcharged workers bound for Malaysia.
The ACC said the 37 accused in these cases collected exorbitant sums from 67,380 individuals by charging the workers nearly five times the government-set rate of Tk 78,990.
The accused recruiting agencies include M/s Orbital Enterprise, M/s Orbital International, Snigdha Overseas Limited, Binimoy International, Five M International, M/s Unique Eastern Private Limited, Catharsis International Limited, M/s Ahmed International, BM Travels Limited, BNS Overseas Limited, Rubel Bangladesh Limited and Ifty Overseas.
Former MPs Nizam Uddin Hazari (Feni-2), Masud Uddin Chowdhury (Feni-3), and Benazir Ahmed (Dhaka-20) were also part of the syndicate, the ACC said.
In a letter dated April 23, Azman Mohd Yusof, secretary-general of Malaysia's Ministry of Human Resources, asked Bangladesh to withdraw the allegations of human trafficking and money laundering involving labour migration to the Southeast Asian country.
"Allegations of human trafficking and money laundering — largely unsubstantiated — have impacted the Malaysian reputation," he wrote, according to a Bloomberg report published yesterday.
The letter was sent to Neyamat Ullah Bhuiyan, senior secretary to Bangladesh's Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment. An official familiar with the letter confirmed its authenticity.
Azman asked Neyamat to review all pending allegations and withdraw those without merit, to ensure Malaysia "will preserve and enhance" its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) rankings, a US State Department assessment. It ranks countries based on their efforts to acknowledge and fight human trafficking.
"In addition, we request to prevent the revival of dismissed cases through a formal mechanism," Azman wrote.
Both Neyamat and Asif Nazrul declined to comment on the letter. A representative for Malaysia's human resources ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
A source in Kuala Lumpur, referring to Nazrul's meetings with Malaysian ministers in Putrajaya, said that as part of the process to reopen its labour market to Bangladesh, Malaysia raised several important issues.
"One of the key concerns is the filing of sensitive cases in Bangladesh that involve human trafficking and money laundering," he told The Daily Star.
Nazrul said he asked the Malaysian ministers to ensure that all registered recruiting agencies, not just the selected ones, have the scope to send workers to Malaysia.
"We said the system should be open for all agencies. They said they would look into the issue," he said.
The adviser urged Malaysian Home Minister Ismail to allow Bangladeshi workers to receive multiple-entry visas, as is the standard for other foreign workers. Currently, Bangladeshi workers are given single-entry visas, which limits their mobility and rights.
The Malaysian minister took the matter seriously and instructed his officials to look into it, Nazrul said.
The discussions also touched on the need to regularise undocumented Bangladeshi workers who have overstayed or whose visas expired due to employer negligence.
While Malaysia ruled out amnesty for those with long-expired visas, it agreed to continue reviewing and updating its regularisation policies.
Nazrul requested the Malaysian side to recruit skilled workers such as security guards, caregivers, and nurses.
Many employers were allegedly fraudulent but managed to secure approval to recruit foreign workers by bribing officials in both countries.
Andy Hall, a Nepal-based migrant rights activist who closely follows the Malaysian labour market, told The Daily Star, "A lot of the workers were hired by the bogus companies who actually had no jobs to offer."
Many of the migrants don't have passports or renewed work permits. They remain indebted and live a miserable life while frequently facing police raids, he said.
"It will be a blunder if the Bangladesh government again allows recruitment of workers in Malaysia without fixing the system and under the pressure of the syndicate," Hall added.
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