The Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants (BCSM) has expressed concern over reports that a new syndicate was being formed for sending Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia.
The members of this platform, which jointly work on immigration, also pressed hopes that mistakes made in the past which led to the long closure of Malaysian manpower market would not be repeated again, a statement said on Wednesday.
That also emphasized that workers should instead be sent in a transparent manner, ensuring that they do not get harmed in any way.
“Although the news of the signing of a new MoU between the two countries on December 19, 2021, to send Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia made everyone hopeful; however no decision has been made yet over the process through which workers will be sent to Malaysia even after four months have passed by,” the platform said.
“In the last few months, BCSM came to know through various media reports that a section of the manpower businesses in Malaysia and Bangladesh still want to send workers through a syndicate of a limited number of recruiting agencies.”
They expressed deep concerns over the issue as the syndicate might try to regulate the labour market in the same manner which led to the halt of manpower export from Bangladesh in 2018.
They also mentioned that the cost of immigration to Malaysia rose tremendously in 2016 due to the formation of the syndicate.
Later, Mahathir's government canceled the G2G Plus system after returning to power in 2018, alleging corruption of at least Tk 5,000 crore.
After various initiatives by the Bangladeshi government in the last few years, the news of the resumption of the Malaysian labour market has made everyone optimistic. But media reports say the syndicate can be active again.
On January 14, Malaysian Human Resources Minister M Saravanan sent a letter to Dhaka to hire workers through only 25 recruiting agencies.
Manpower traders have already held press conferences on several occasions calling the proposal to select 25 out of more than one and a half thousand new recruiting agencies in Bangladesh as 'syndicate'.
In a counter letter dated January 16, 2022, Bangladesh's Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Imran Ahmed said the government could not employ a limited number of agencies by referring to the ILO Charter and the Bangladesh Competition Act 2012.
According to the law of Bangladesh, all the recruiting agencies with legal license should be given equal opportunity. The letter said Bangladesh wants transparent, lawless and safe migration. Besides, Bangladesh has proposed a meeting of the joint working committee of the two countries to fix the process of sending workers.
BCSM welcomes the position of the minister and advises that Malaysia should take workers from Bangladesh in the same way as it takes workers from other countries in a transparent manner.
Besides, Bangladesh should have its own system of online recruitment and health examination so that there can be no irregularities or syndicates anywhere.
