Malaysian and Bangladeshi officials will work together to fingerprint for the first time the estimated 500,000 Bangladeshis working legally and illegally in Malaysia, the Malaysian home minister said Wednesday.
It is part of a wider scheme to fingerprint the around two million illegal immigrants in Malaysia, which depends on foreigners from mostly poorer regional countries to fill jobs in construction sites, plantations and other places shunned by the local people.
Malaysia announced last week that amnesty would be offered to those who would come forward from July 11 for two weeks. Some of them will be able to keep their jobs, while others will be deported without facing penalties such as caning for overstaying.
Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Wednesday that his government had struck a separate agreement, to be implemented soon, with Bangladesh High Commission to Kuala Lumpur to facilitate the registration of their workers.
Under the deal, the government officials may visit the factories employing Bangladeshi workers to register them.
The two countries will also share information to crack down on the traffickers who exploit Bangladeshi workers, the minister said.
'The objective is to... ensure that these people are not exploited either by traffickers or syndicates or any third parties,' he said.
Malaysia remains on a US human trafficking watch list, according to the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which the State Department released this week.
The report, which ranks countries according to their efforts to combat human trafficking, said Malaysia did not effectively investigate and prosecute labour trafficking cases.
'There remain many serious concerns regarding trafficking in Malaysia, including the detention of trafficking victims in government facilities,' the report said.
Hishammuddin admitted that Malaysia was still in the process of tackling the problem.
'I agree with them. I think we should still be on the watch list because we have just rolled out these measures such as fingerprinting the workers,' he said.
Source : New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment