Skip to main
Malaysiakini logo

YOURSAY | The rot is deep in migrant workers’ recruitment

This article is 6 months old

YOURSAY | ‘Agents on both sides work hand in hand to make this happen.’

Attempts to report agent lands migrant workers in immigration custody

MarioT: This is exploitation by unscrupulous people for a fast buck. How can the workers come in without jobs?

It does not take a brilliant mind to figure out that the documents are forged to bring them in.

Agents on both sides of the country work hand in hand to make this happen.

These poor and helpless men just want to earn a living for their families and have spent large sums of money to get here, only to be cheated and treated like criminals.

Those who commit such cruel and merciless acts should be severely punished.

OrangePanther1466: If indeed these poor souls have been brought in legally, why detain them? What does the agent say?

How is it possible for the agent to have legally brought these workers in without any confirmed job offers?

Who made the police report against these 171 individuals?  

It appears that all is not well within the Immigration Department.  

Shouldn’t the 171 workers be allowed advisory services from their respective embassies as well as lodge a police report against the agent?

I hope the relevant immigration officers are not implicated with the agent. So much for our human rights record.

This is shameful.

MS: When the agent is connected to politicians who in turn control the enforcement agencies, this is what happens.  

So no surprise here. The state in this instance does not have clean hands.

The symbiosis among agents, employers, and enforcement agencies thrives because there is money involved and it continues to be profitable.

Undecided: As stated in the article, among the questions raised include how the employers who signed the employment contracts obtained quotas to recruit workers if the employers had no jobs to offer.  

If eradicating corruption is the objective, then the above matter needs a thorough investigation to find out the truth. Maybe it’s not the employer’s fault.

ScarletCheetah8198: This is very common today.

Agents, who are not employers, collect huge sums of money from aspiring workers in their country and then bring them into Malaysia and abandon them.

The poor workers are not even given any work permits.

All this happens because the agents have very good connections in the ministry, immigration, and embassies.

Demi Rakyat: Workers were brought in by the agent but then cannot find jobs for them. Does anyone believe the agent?

More likely the agent is a scammer who cheated these poor foreigners.  

I won’t be surprised if some authority figures are also involved in this scam.

Anonymous_3f4b: Time for the new human resources minister, Steven Sim, to take action and make a difference after years of apathy and corruption at all levels of the ministry and enforcement agencies.

ProMalaysia: These parasitic agents are giving Malaysia a bad name globally.

All these exploited migrant workers will badmouth and condemn Malaysia as a country when they return home.

The new human resource minister and the home minister must put a stop to this exploitation and modern-day slavery and redeem Malaysia’s good name.

Rastaman: Sim, the turkey can wait. You must go to Setia Tropika to sort out matters ASAP.

As for Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, let us not talk about him.

Quo Vadis Malaysia: Vested interests left, right, and centre.

It will take a superhuman effort to resolve the massive fraud and compromised processes that enable the import of workers, and this is just through the supposedly legal channels.

The illegal entry of foreigners is another kettle of fish altogether!

Politicians should stop meddling in business when they are not competent in it: How dare the Bangladeshis complain about our leaders?  

They want to protect the Palestinians far away but exploit Muslim Bangladeshis at our doorstep who are ignored and arrested.  

Maybe in the US, they will protest outside the Malaysian embassy for six days?

Healer_MY: These workers probably paid thousands of ringgit to these parasitic agents to land jobs here.

Instead of going after the agents, our authorities go after the victims. Syabas.

Bornean: Instead of assisting them to lodge police reports and get to the bottom of things, the government chose to use the Immigration Act to detain them.

How confused is the government?

RedGopher0486: The employers and the agents involved must be arrested, charged, and fined a minimum of 100 times the fee paid by each migrant worker.

But as usual, the victims are instead being victimised again. A national shame!


The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. In the past year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now.

These comments are compiled to reflect the views of Malaysiakini subscribers on matters of public interest. Malaysiakini does not intend to represent these views as fact.