‘Government has shown more inefficiency than recruiting agencies’
Thousands of workers are resorting to dangerous means of illegal migration to Malaysia but the government is unwilling to improve the situation. Tasneem Siddiqui, chairperson of Refuge and Migratory Movements Research Unit tells Saad Hammadi. - June 27, 2014 , The Daily New Age.
Nine Bangladeshis were reportedly killed during a feud with manpower agents while they were travelling illegally to Malaysia. Do you see a failure on part of the government to ensure a smooth migration process prompting people to take such dangerous means?
When migration through formal channel drops, the irregular migration increases. The system has developed in the last four to five years with people willing to migrate to Malaysia however, without means to arrange money in the range of three to three-and-half lakh takas. This [illegal migration] increased because we have not been able to send workers through the legal channel. On the other hand, Malaysia has demand for three to five lakh workers. You now have daily flights, sometimes even two flights a day to Malaysia [from Bangladesh] and the passengers are not all tourists. They are migrant labours. You also have those travelling through the sea. Previously, migrant labours travelling through the sea concentrated in areas surrounding Banshkhali. But after the formal channel closed, we are finding people from Satkhira, Jhalakathi and such places taking the sea route. These people are not even completely aware about the migration process. A syndicate of agents from Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh is operating in the region to send labours to Malaysia through Thailand. The Overseas Employment Act 2013 has empowered the ministry to take action against rackets operating illegal migration. But till date, we have not seen any of them being prosecuted. The new law has provisions to implicate even the migrants who are going through illegal channels. But there is no use nabbing them, instead resuming the formal channels is more important. Only two per cent people went to Saudi Arabia this year. Kuwait and UAE have stopped recruiting [workers from Bangladesh]. People are willing to go abroad for work but they are not able to go. It is not because there is no market. They are not able to go because we are not able to negotiate. Myanmar is a new entrant into the labour market. Malaysian outsourcing companies are recruiting workers from Myanmar. We have to be clever and we have to think about the feasibility of the government-to-government platform.
The recruiting agencies were largely involved in sending workers abroad previously amid allegations of dishonest practices. How do you compare the situation with the G2G platform?
Recruiting agencies do not have any business in Malaysia. Other markets such as UAE and Saudi Arabia where Bangladeshis seek work usually have stopped hiring people. Bangladesh’s labour market is always focused in one direction. When workers go to Saudi Arabia, 50 to 60 per cent of them travel there. It is the same in case of UAE. Currently, the market is open only in Qatar, Oman and Singapore. Qatar is offering better wage and recruiting people for construction ahead of the 2022 world cup. But a very small number of Bangladeshis were able to enter the market compared to workers from Sri Lanka or Nepal. As a result, our people are moving to more dangerous territories. We have increased our capacity of labour attaché in the foreign missions but the people hired in those sections are from disciplines that have no prior experience of communicating with common people.
The government claims it has prepared a database of 1.4 million people willing to travel to Malaysia under the G2G platform. What are the limitations within the government to government platform?
The government-to-government agreement with Malaysia was a major achievement for Bangladesh, which other countries such as Nepal or Sri Lanka could not reach. But the problem is: the employers in Malaysia are used to hiring people through [third parties such as] recruiting firms and agents. These [third party] agencies provide social security and healthcare benefits to migrant workers. Our G2G has names of workers listed online. The employers will have to place demands to their government and the Malaysian government will process these demands by coordinating with our government. It is a good step in the sense that there is no space for middlemen. But that has not helped in increasing the overseas employment. The companies are not providing work to Bangladeshis. To make this system effective, our government should have hired officials with marketing skills to approach to recruiting firms in Malaysia to fetch work. The government will not be able to match the demand unless it has the speed and efficiency that the private sector maintains. The governments of Bangladesh and Malaysia first agreed that they would hire 10,000 workers but in the last two years only 4,500 workers went to Malaysia.
But recruiting agencies were criticised heavily for their malpractice when they handled labour migration in the past.
The government needs to be efficient about managing and controlling recruiting agencies. If there is corruption within the administration you cannot do any good even if you bring in good recruiting agencies. I do not see any problem behind making recruiting agencies accountable. When the government tried to perform the role of recruiting agencies, it has shown more inefficiency than them.
Xtra investigations have found that law enforcement officials receive share of the money collected by brokers operating illegal migration from the migrant workers. Do you think the government’s indifference and corruption is encouraging the illegal migration to continue?
When you have the Border Guard Bangladesh, Navy and above all the home ministry in the country, could they not stop illegal migration right from the beginning? Even the names of the agents and brokers are known. Why then are they not arrested? There is definitely a deeper motive behind not arresting them. Even the places and ships are identified. Firstly, there is complete negligence and a lack of government’s accountability to address the crisis. Secondly, there is room for corruption in such situations. The formal channel recruitment is 33 per cent less than last year. Every year the worker migration is dropping except for female migration. Much of this is due to ego of policymakers, who are deliberating the government-to-government concept to function. The government is unwilling to reorganise and improve the situation