Alyaa Alhadjri
Petaling Jaya: Home Minister of Malaysia Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s announcement that more than 2,400 undocumented migrants were arrested in the first 24 hours of the nationwide 6P Integrated Operation on January 21 has raised questions over follow-up actions against parties found guilty of bringing them into Malaysia, a report received from Malaysia says.
The figure is expected to grow as the crackdown continues under Phase 2 of the operation which was first launched in 2011. The arrested migrants are said to be mostly Bangladeshis.Labour activist Charles Hector Fernandez said arrests and detention of the undocumented migrants at 15 immigration depots must be followed up by a thorough investigation on the journey from their country of origin to Malaysia.
This, he said, involves identifying the responsible parties from the time of the migrants’ arrival to the processes leading to their employment in Malaysia, or resulting in them being “undocumented”.
Zahid had reportedly said the irregular immigrants would be deported to their home countries within seven days but Fernandez questioned whether that was enough time to conduct the necessary investigations.
“This is something which the authorities must answer. Once you have arrested thousands of people, how long will it take to conduct and conclude an investigation?”
“The investigations must also be able to push for a criminal charge against third-party agencies who brought the migrants into Malaysia (if any), put them on trial and resulting in a conviction for the offence,” Fernandez told the antdaily on Jan 21.
Fernandez said, in most instances, a conviction can only be achieved if there are enough credible witnesses to testify against the agencies and he claimed that this will not happen if the detained immigrants are deported within seven days.
“If the government is serious to resolve the problem of undocumented migrants, witnesses (among migrants under detention) must be protected so they can testify on how they became undocumented,” he stressed.
While Zahid had said that employers found guilty of harbouring undocumented migrants will be charged under the Immigration Act 1959/63, he did not state any possible actions against errant third-party agencies.
As such, Fernandez urged the government to disclose the latest number of convictions for relevant charges, including under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007.
According to statistics from the Malaysian Home Ministry’s Anti-trafficking in Persons and Anti-smuggling of Migrants Council (MAPO), 591 cases were investigated between 2008 and 2012, with 797 arrests made.
On Zahid’s statement that the deported migrants will be “blacklisted” and barred from returning, Fernandez said the government should create a similar list of blacklisted agencies to avoid more employers and workers from falling victim to their unscrupulous actions.
When contacted, labour lawyer A Sivanesan told theantdaily he previously handled cases of workers from India who claimed that they had paid up to 100,000 rupees to Indian agents after being promised of what turned out to be non-existent jobs in Malaysia.
“There are no agencies here (in Malaysia) that can bring inirregular workers.
“These people (undocumented migrants) were brought in using social visit passes through local (Malaysian) agents who collaborated with their counterparts in India or Bangladesh,” said Sivanesan, who is also the DAP state assemblyman for Sungkai.
There were also reported incidents of foreign workers being hired in a different sector from their approved permits, believed to be due to a significant difference in levy charges for the various sectors.
“If these workers are arrested, most of the time they cannot tell (the authorities) who their Malaysian agents are,” Sivanesan added.
The Perak DAP vice-chairman, however, said that he welcomes the government’s crackdown on irregular workers as their large numbers have adversely affected opportunities for local workers.
As of Jan 20 this year, one day before the launch of the nationwide multi-agencies operations involving some 10,000 officers, it was estimated that there were more than 2.3 million undocumented migrants in Malaysia. – via Google
