COMMENT | Weed out middlemen to end exploitation of workers

COMMENT | For more than 15 years, groups involved in human rights, workers rights and the lot have been saying it. Their voices were supported by lawyers and experts who had dealt with such cases. No one bothered to listen – neither the employers nor the government. Protests and petitions were ignored; reports to the authorities ended up in the bin, and the stand was that we needed foreign labour to bolster bottom lines of the industry.

Even reports of exploitation of foreign workers were pooh-poohed and dismissed as “Western attempts to derail our economy” and the thirst for cheap labour continued unabatedly. Even the threat of sanctions did not bring about changes and the stand taken was that: “We will cross the bridge when we come to it.”

The use of agents and agencies to recruit foreign workers is a double whammy – payments are made in the source country (to get recruited) and again when they start earning (getting employment) in Malaysia. There are far too many sob stories of foreign workers having to work for the first six months just to pay off their home country agents.

But it has taken foreign groups to bolster these pleas and take it to their respective governments to bring about some form of action. It has succeeded. Some Malaysian companies are running ...