Migrants’ rights activists at a discussion on Wednesday demanded the government to take pragmatic actions against the Malaysia labour market syndicate immediately.
Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit organised the discussion at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital.
RMMRU executive director CR Abrar also demanded five times higher compensation for the aspirant Malaysia migrants who couldn’t secure jobs there but gave money to the recruiting agents in the syndicate.
He said that over the decade the organised syndicate was controlling the Malaysia market putting migrant workers in danger and destroying the image of the country.
Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies joint secretary Fakhrul Islam said that Malaysia hired workers from 15 countries but there was no syndicate in any country except Bangladesh.
WARBE Development Foundation chairman Syed Saiful Haque said that the government should form a commission on migration issue to ensure safe, orderly and regular migration from Bangladesh to other countries.
He said that India and Nepal sent so many workers to Malaysia at a lower migration cost than that was in Bangladesh.
He blamed syndicate for the high cost of migration.
In August 2022, Malaysia reopened the market after keeping it suspended for more than four years over corruption allegations.
It closed the market on May 31 again for the same reason, sector insiders said.
They said that many other aspirants in Bangladesh deposited their money, passports and other papers but the process remained incomplete when the deadline expired.
There were also allegations that a syndicate of recruiting agencies charged aspirant workers much higher than the government fixed migration costs.
Aspirant migrants alleged that recruiting agencies took Tk 5–7 lakh from each, while the government set Tk 78,990 as the migration cost for Malaysia.
Recruiting agents and migrants, on the other hand, complained that with the May 31 deadline airlines had charged Tk 1.5 lakh for a ticket when their regular price was about Tk 30,000.
Around 50,000 Bangladeshi aspirants failed to migrate to Malaysia after completing almost all the processes by the May 31 deadline set by the Malaysian authorities.
Of them 16,970 aspirant migrants failed to fly to Malaysia at the last moment for want of air tickets only.
On October 4, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim after a bilateral meeting in Dhaka announced that they had agreed to consider issuing 18,000 work visas for those Bangladeshis who could not fly due to some recent measures by the Malaysia government.
Around 8,00,000 Bangladeshis are now working in Malaysia, according to officials.