Bangladesh has resumed the process of sending migrant workers to Malaysia after a four-year suspension.
A total of 53 workers under the supervision of the recruiting agency Catharsis International left Dhaka for Kuala Lumpur on an AirAsia flight at 11:40pm on Monday. The Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) expects to send 600,000-800,000 migrant workers to Malaysia in the next six months.
An official of Catharsis International on Monday told Dhaka Tribune: “We wrote to the ministries concerned in July for permission to send around 110 workers to the Jimat Jaya Company in Malaysia. We received permission on August 3.”
The migrant workers will work in factories of the company under a three-year contract with a salary of Tk32,000 per month. The company will bear the air fare to travel to Malaysia, accommodation, and transport costs, but it will not provide food.
Is Bangladesh ready for the resumption?
Sector insiders expressed concern that official channels to send migrant workers were being resumed when the problems with illegal migrant workers for which they had been suspended were yet to be resolved.
The Malaysian government is continuing its raids to find illegal migrant workers, and many Bangladeshis are still living in Malaysia illegally. Furthermore, some agencies continue to charge extortionate amounts from migrant workers.
“Sending more migrant workers without resolving these issues will lead to the same problems,” one migration specialist said.
The Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira), BMET, and Bangladesh -Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI) have urged the government to address syndication by a group of recruiting agencies and permit all recruiting agencies to send workers to Malaysia to maximize the potential of sending workers.
If Bangladesh does not address these issues soon, the country may again lose the opportunity to send workers to the Malaysian labour market, they added.
The government has assured that the problems that led to the suspension of the manpower route in 2018 will not resurface.
Mentioning that the government will never promote any syndicate, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed said: “The Malaysian labour market will be open for all legal recruitment agencies.”
However, Baira has alleged that some top government officials in collusion with 25 recruiting agencies were trying to capture the entire market of manpower exports to Malaysia, depriving over 1,000 other recruiting agencies of a level playing field.
“We have learnt that 14 agencies out of the 25 have received demand letters from Malaysia,” it alleged.
Baira advised the government to publicly release guidelines on how to properly complete the process of sending workers to Malaysia.
“This way, no one will be deceived,” said Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury Noman, former secretary general of Baira.
Bangladesh began sending labourers to Malaysia in 1984. Until 2009, all agencies had the opportunity to export workers to Malaysia, without hindrance.
Tipu Sultan, member secretary of Baira, said: “If the government does proper monitoring then it will be possible to stop the illegal sending of migrant workers.”
According to the last agreement signed in 2016, the Malaysian government announced that 1.5 million workers would be imported from Bangladesh every year. BMET and BMCCI leaders said only 10 agencies had the privilege to export manpower at the time.
Despite the maximum cost for each person being fixed at Tk35,000, the recruiting syndicate took Tk3,00,000-4,00,000 per person. Only 40,000 workers were legally exported in four years
On December 19, 2021, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur to start sending Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia again.
SM Zillur Rahman, chairman of Rahman Group and former director of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “Under the new agreement, those who have been illegal for so long will be given legal assistance so that they can get legitimacy in the workplace.”
Current picture of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia
The Malaysian authorities have decided to open recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in all sectors, including plantation, agriculture, manufacturing, services, mining, construction, and household services.
Currently, some 200,000-300,000 undocumented Bangladeshis are living in Malaysia. Manpower export to Malaysia was suspended in 2018.
According to the BMET, Bangladesh exported a total of 485,893 workers during the January-November period of 2021, a total of 217,669 in 2020, 700,159 in 2019, 734,181 in 2018, 10008, 528 in 2017 and 757,731 workers in 2016 to different countries.
Manpower exports to Malaysia were recorded at 919 in 2009, 742 in 2011 and 804 in 2012, 3,853 in 2013 and 5,134 in 2014.
Bangladesh had exported a total of 1.06 million skilled and unskilled workers to the Southeast Asian country in the 1976--2019 period, according to the BMET.
Shariful Hasan, head of the Brac Migration Program, told Dhaka Tribune: “Although it is positive that the process of sending workers has started, one should be careful about all the reasons that stopped it earlier.”