Editorial
Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia
Amnesty is good news
The Malaysian Home Ministry has announced that 2.68 lakh workers from Bangladesh will have regularised immigration status in Malaysia from October 10 under the amnesty program. The Malaysian government had taken this decision because the country needs all these workers for various sectors. Thus, no registered workers will be deported. The five sectors in which these workers are needed are plantation, manufacturing, agriculture, service industry and manufacturing.
This is very good news considering that migrant workers contribute largely into the Bangladesh economy and this provides a very considerable income for the country. In recent times however, this sum is on the decline as many migrant workers had to return home in recent months. This may be attributed to the political unrest in the Middle East countries. Therefore, Malaysia's demand and Bangladesh's supply of workers are clearly a win-win situation.
However, the problem arises with the immigration status of irregular workers, who total 24,000, those who are not registered with the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. They have largely migrated with the help of immigration brokers or middle men and they were under a state of confusion as to whether they would be allowed to stay on and look for work once they have been regularized. The Malaysian government had made a proposition to irregular workers to either get registered and regularized or return home without facing any penalty. It had also declared that these workers would be considered jobless as outsourcing companies are not employers.
It is our hope that these irregular workers, although having misunderstood the proposal made by the Malaysian government, can also continue staying on in Malaysia and be allowed to find employment legally and that they will be able to find suitable employment. This will benefit Bangladesh.
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