'Fraud, corruption among main reasons for undocumented migrants'
Among the root causes for migrant workers becoming undocumented in Malaysia is the widespread corruption among the authorities as well as fraud and cheating by agents, migrant rights NGO Tenaganita caseworker Joseph Paul said.
“The problem of ‘undocumented-ness’ really goes back to a large number of reasons. Mainly, I would put them as cheating and fraud by agents and corruption on the part of the authorities.
“By authorities, you know what I mean - the people who are involved in issuing visas and work permits and such,” Joseph said in an interview on Astro Awani last night.
He gave an example of companies that bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers with so-called valid papers and then leave them stranded without jobs and without work permits.
Joseph asked: “What are these migrant workers, who now suddenly find themselves undocumented, supposed to do?
“Do you expect them to pay a huge penalty to the government, to the immigration, then buy their flight tickets back home and go back to huge debts?”
He explained that a common occurrence was that many of the so-called valid documents turned out to be fraudulent and most of the time, the workers do not even realise it is a fraud.
“They have passports that are stamped with official-looking visas and stuff, but when they are taken to immigration and it is time to go back, they are told this is a fraud.
“They are paying good money for genuine documents and they believe that,” Joseph added.
On top of that, when the Immigration Department finds these fraudulent documents, they are less interested in finding out who issued the fake papers but are more interested in detaining the workers, he said.
Now, in the fight against Covid-19, he said, Malaysia has found a “convenient whipping boy” to blame for the pandemic - which are the migrant workers.
However, he said, the migrant workers have nothing to do with Covid-19 at all.
“It is Malaysia’s gift to them. They got infected here.
“You can find clusters of Covid-19 positive migrant workers, maybe in high-density accommodations, but did they also generate this Covid-19 virus? Definitely not,” Joseph said.
He also decried the recent action of the authorities in arresting undocumented migrants in one fell swoop in areas under an enhanced movement control order (EMCO).
“You build trust (with the migrant workers) by keeping your word, but it is not being done. You told workers to come forward to get tested and that action will not be taken against them, but then you arrest them after that,” he said.
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) chairperson Dr Michael Jeyakumar also took issue with the recent arrests of undocumented migrants.
Previously, Jeyakumar had called for a moratorium on immigration offences as well as free healthcare services for migrant workers till next year.
He said this was in order to effectively curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country as the main thing in the fight against the pandemic was the need to identify and isolate cases as well as trace their close contacts and quarantine those contacts.
“(But) if you have a situation where foreign workers are afraid to go to hospitals because they are scared of the high charges (of medical fees), and number two, they are worried about getting detained... workers who might have symptoms would be afraid to come forward.
“They will self-medicate, they would stay in their communities, they would infect their friends and then eventually the rest of the population would get infected as well,” Jeyakumar said.
Therefore, in order to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities must get the cooperation of foreign workers and this can only be done if they stop arresting them and holding them in detention centres, he added. - Mkini
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