Illegal migration to Malaysia on rise
Friday, 18 September 2009
Mashiur Rahaman
Bangladeshis are sneaking into Malaysia with tourist and business visas and becoming illegal workers in increasing numbers, which is discouraging legal recruitment in the country and putting migrants own safety at stake, experts said.
Thousands of desperate Bangladeshi job seekers are risking their lives every month to reach Malaysia via air, sea or land, a source at the immigration department told the FE.
"Mostly travelling by air with tourist or business visas, hundreds of Bangladeshis board half-a-dozen airlines operating on Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur route every week," airport source said.
Driven by manpower brokers having links with Malaysian counterparts, these desperate job seekers travel with return-tickets but do not return home.
"We have no mechanism to curb this illegal outflow as they carry valid visas issued by the Malaysian embassy," he said.
A number of travel operators are involved in managing such individual and group visas," he claimed.
These desperate, less financially solvent Bangladeshi job seekers are also pawning their lives with the human traders for transporting them to the destination via sea or land. The journey often ends up in horrifying death or imprisonment in foreign land, the immigration officer added.
This illegal trend had accelerated since the Malaysian government put a ban on fresh recruitment from Bangladesh, president of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Golam Mostafa told the FE.
He said national and international companies in Malaysia are in dire need of cheap migrant workers from Bangladesh. BAIRA and its lobby in Malaysia have been trying to mobilise the needs to keep pressure on local government to reopen doors for Bangladeshi workers.
"All our efforts are in vain as these illegal migrants are taking the place of legal workers in much lower wages," he added.
This had put these Bangladeshi workers in a serious situation in Malaysia as they become illegal immigrants, Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman Joint Secretary General of BAIRA said
"In Malaysia, tourists are not allowed to work. Being illegal immigrant, they become nothing more than a wage-slave and most vulnerable to extortion and human trafficking," he said.
He said these illegal migrants are mostly employed in agricultural farms in remote parts of the country and cannot even leave the employers territory in fear of police arrest," he added.
Asif Muneer, a migrant expert of International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said he had received complaints of a number of such cases.
The governments of both the countries have to curb this illegal trafficking, he said and added, "Bangladesh has to act more promptly as safety of its nationals are at stake."
Bangladeshis are sneaking into Malaysia with tourist and business visas and becoming illegal workers in increasing numbers, which is discouraging legal recruitment in the country and putting migrants own safety at stake, experts said.
Thousands of desperate Bangladeshi job seekers are risking their lives every month to reach Malaysia via air, sea or land, a source at the immigration department told the FE.
"Mostly travelling by air with tourist or business visas, hundreds of Bangladeshis board half-a-dozen airlines operating on Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur route every week," airport source said.
Driven by manpower brokers having links with Malaysian counterparts, these desperate job seekers travel with return-tickets but do not return home.
"We have no mechanism to curb this illegal outflow as they carry valid visas issued by the Malaysian embassy," he said.
A number of travel operators are involved in managing such individual and group visas," he claimed.
These desperate, less financially solvent Bangladeshi job seekers are also pawning their lives with the human traders for transporting them to the destination via sea or land. The journey often ends up in horrifying death or imprisonment in foreign land, the immigration officer added.
This illegal trend had accelerated since the Malaysian government put a ban on fresh recruitment from Bangladesh, president of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Golam Mostafa told the FE.
He said national and international companies in Malaysia are in dire need of cheap migrant workers from Bangladesh. BAIRA and its lobby in Malaysia have been trying to mobilise the needs to keep pressure on local government to reopen doors for Bangladeshi workers.
"All our efforts are in vain as these illegal migrants are taking the place of legal workers in much lower wages," he added.
This had put these Bangladeshi workers in a serious situation in Malaysia as they become illegal immigrants, Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman Joint Secretary General of BAIRA said
"In Malaysia, tourists are not allowed to work. Being illegal immigrant, they become nothing more than a wage-slave and most vulnerable to extortion and human trafficking," he said.
He said these illegal migrants are mostly employed in agricultural farms in remote parts of the country and cannot even leave the employers territory in fear of police arrest," he added.
Asif Muneer, a migrant expert of International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said he had received complaints of a number of such cases.
The governments of both the countries have to curb this illegal trafficking, he said and added, "Bangladesh has to act more promptly as safety of its nationals are at stake."