Sagar Biswas :The Bangladeshi migrants, legal and illegal, are apparently facing troubles in Malaysia where most of them have been passing their days in inhuman condition due to critical visa procedures.It’s also a common scenario in Malaysia where several Bangladeshi migrants face physical torture by their employers. Of them, the female workers have to face sexual harassment too. According to the ministry of expatriates’ welfare, around six lakh Bangladeshis are working in several sectors of Malaysia and most of them suffer a lot due to non-cooperation of Malaysian government.Besides, the unpleasant role of Bangladesh High Commission officials in Kuala Lumpur has made the situation more critical. There are widespread allegations that the embassy officials often remain busy in personal business instead of providing service to the expatriates.Torture by the Malaysian employers has increased nowadays. Recently, a Bangladeshi migrant worker in Malaysia filed a suit against the Malaysian authorities demanding three million Malaysian Ringgits [RM] in compensation for physical torture and illegal confinement. Alamin Sheikh Badsha filed the suit with Penang High Court against the Malaysian government, immigration department director-general and investigation officer, inspector-general of police, the Penang police chief and the investigation officer, malaysiakini.com, a Malaysian news website reported. But the said expatriate still did not get any support from the Bangladeshi High Commission.The Bangladesh Government also did not take any step about female household staff staying in Malaysia when Indonesia and Cambodia have already stopped sending their female workers in the wake of reports of physical torture and sexual harassment.It is learnt that the domestic helps in Malaysia were regularly beaten and sometimes became victims of sexual harassment. As a result of inhuman torture, many housemaids ran away and police detained them and kept them in jail. In the jails, the female migrants were further assaulted.In this backdrop, the Bangladesh government has signed an agreement ‘on partial abolition of visa requirements’ and a protocol amending the 2012 MoU on employment of its workers. The amendment will allow the recruitment of at least 12,000 Bangladesh workers for Sarawak state, Malaysia. The ministers of the relevant ministries signed the documents in presence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Malaysian counterpart Najib Tun Razak at his office in Putra Jaya on Wednesday. Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque, who is now at Kuala Lumpur, said the number of Bangladeshi migrant workers may be raised to 60,000 later.But it is not sure what facilities the Bangladeshi would get from the deals. Bangladesh earlier had signed a government-to-government [G2G] agreement for exporting workers to Malaysia. But it did not work due to severe non-cooperation from the Malaysian counterpart. At present, more than 14 lakh Bangladeshis are waiting for going Malaysia as their registration had been completed two years back. “So far as we think, it’s a political stunt. Sarawak state is outside of Malaysian mainland. The workers will not get chance to stay inside Malaysia. The will stop at Kuala Lampur after arrival and directly send to Sarawak state. Usually, the people do not want go there,” said Md Khorshed Zamil, owner of a recruiting farm. He said the majority of Bangladeshi migrants work hard in plantation farms, palm gardens, construction sites and factories in low salaries. Apart from it, Bangladesh has signed another document over visa ease where government officials and diplomats of both countries will get on-arrival visas at airports. But it is also not clear whether the illegal migrants who are passing their days in uncertainty about their visas would get any benefit from the latest deals. Meanwhile, the illegal migration to Malaysia has become a major concern to our people for inhuman treatment they are meted out. Yet the plight of our jobless workers is such that they often take risky wooden boat journey to go to Malaysia, which also results death of dozens of people every year when boats carrying, mostly Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslim refugees, keel over in the deep sea. According to the UNHCR, nearly 50 to 150 Bangladeshis travel to Malaysia every week by paying traffickers operating the illegal sea routes while the illegal migration and sea accidents reach a peak each November to March. On November 20, BNS Durjoy rescued 614 people, including 12 children and 21 boatmen, from Bay of Bengal, 135 nautical miles southwest from Saint Martin’s Island, when they were being sent to Malaysia illegally through the unnamed Myanmar-flag hoisted trawler.Earlier, five Bangladeshis were killed and at least 151 injured when a gang of miscreants from Myanmar opened fire on a trawler, carrying over 300 people illegally to Malaysia, in the Bay of Bengal on June 11. The question utmost in the minds of everybody where is the anxiety on the part of the government to find jobs within the country? Our manpower is inhumanly used for the developing country. Why they cannot be used honourably for the development of own country?
