{"id":3323,"date":"2019-06-28T21:37:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T21:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danwatch.dk\/the-labour-supply-chain-how-foreign-workers-end-up-indebted-in-malaysia\/"},"modified":"2024-07-23T12:53:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T12:53:21","slug":"the-labour-supply-chain-how-foreign-workers-end-up-indebted-in-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danwatch.dk\/en\/the-labour-supply-chain-how-foreign-workers-end-up-indebted-in-malaysia\/","title":{"rendered":"The labour supply chain: how foreign workers end up indebted in Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Danwatch investigation<\/h6>\n

Workers’ hostels in an industrial area on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur<\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, Malaysia\u2019s manufacturing industries have been highly dependent on the cheap labour of foreign workers. Last year, there were 2,2 million registered migrants in Malaysia and the number of undocumented migrant workers was estimated to be between 2 and 4 million according to the International Organization for Migration. Today those workers mainly originate from Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

About the investigation<\/h2>\n

Danwatch has been to Malaysia to meet some of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers that play a vital part in the country\u2019s electronics industry.<\/p>\n

In Malaysia, we interviewed 12 workers from three different factories and have since conducted a number of interviews with workers via video calls.<\/p>\n

The investigation was supported by the EU-funded project Make ICT Fair and published in collaboration with Setem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

While high-skilled and semi-skilled migrant workers are often recruited at high cost by employers, uneducated low-skilled workers mostly have to pay for their work and recruitment in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

These workers often end up paying extortionate fees for recruitment into low-skilled work, which may plunge an entire family into debt and make workers vulnerable to debt bondage in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

Workers like Alina and Binsa, who Danwatch interviewed<\/a>, claim to have paid 950-1100 euros in recruitment fees – the equivalent of 4-5 months\u2019 basic wages, which they used their first year in Malaysia to pay off.<\/p>\n

But Malaysian media investigations frequently expose how workers – especially from Bangladesh – have payed up to around 4.200 euros just to get work permit approvals and a flight ticket to Malaysia.<\/p>\n

\u201cRidiculous amounts under the table\u201d<\/h4>\n

The reason recruitment fees can grow to such a size is mainly because of the amount of various actors making money from the migrants on their route from their countries to Malaysia, workers rights advocates in Malaysia claim.<\/p>\n

According to Andy Hall, a migrant worker rights specialist in Southeast Asia, a whole \u201csyndicate\u201d of recruitment agents and sub-agents in both Malaysia and the origin countries result in \u201cridiculous amounts of money being paid under the table.\u201d<\/p>\n