New Age Bangladesh | 26 December 2019
Malaysia decided to eliminate middlemen who charge millions of foreign workers exorbitant recruitment fees, leaving them saddled with debt and vulnerable to exploitation.
From factories to construction sites and plantations, Malaysia relies heavily on foreign workers for jobs shunned by locals.Many expatriates arrive after borrowing huge sums to pay recruitment agents, consequently they have to work for years earning virtually nothing – a form of modern-day slavery known as debt bondage.
To address the situation, recently Malaysia struck a deal with Nepal to directly recruit its workers, without going through agents. The agreement came after Nepal suspended sending workers due to concerns about their treatment.
The agreement with Nepal aims at curbing human trafficking and exploitation of workers, Malaysian human resources minister M. Kulasegaran told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.‘They must not be in a bondage situation in this country and caught in a vicious cycle of earning to pay back money.’
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