HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Change needed in our treatment of foreign workers, say MTUC

Pauline Almeida

Malay Mail, Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

OUR understanding of human trafficking should not be limited to women being sold into the flesh trade but how the nation treats foreign workers in general. This is the stand off the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), which feels the government must accept responsiblity for the country being moved to Tier 3 in the US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report 2009 .

It was put on the 'blacklist' for not fully complying with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and not  making significant efforts to  do so.

The report alleges that government officials were involved in trafficking but that none have been prosecuted.

 

MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasekaran said there is no reason for the authorities to be upset by this report.

"We have to look at how we treat foreign domestic maids, withholding their passports, not paying them wages after working up to six months, working 16-17 hours daily, getting agents to buy and sell maids to you for more than RM7,000. These are all forms of trafficking,"  Rajasekaran told Malay Mail yesterday.

He was responding to Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein's reaction over the disclosure of Malaysia's downgrading to Tier 3 status.

According to Rajasekaran, since 2006, the Home Ministry has given out licences to 272 outsourcing agents to bring in foreign workers, and along the way these foreigners are "leased out" to work at restaurants and factories for more than they actually get paid.

There is another common practice whereby agents allow these foreigners to work at restaurants. But when a raid is conducted, the latter are caught while the agents and the socalled employers get away.

"This is clearly trafficking. Therefore, the issuance of licences should not have been done in the first place. If this system continues, we cannot get upset with what the findings revealed," added Rajasekaran.