Fraudulent job offers leave migrant workers stranded in Malaysia

Imagine starting your life in a new country with a promising job offer, only to find out that the company you were hired by is fake. 

This nightmare has become a reality for Md Zahedul Hossain (not his real name) and his group of 47 migrant workers from Bangladesh, who arrived in Malaysia in December 2022. 

The workers were promised a minimum salary of 1,500 Malaysian Ringgit by a company called Eluminas Engineering, but upon arrival, they discovered the company was a fraud. 

Now, Zahedul and his fellow workers are struggling to survive, facing starvation and appalling living conditions. 

This is not an isolated incident; many migrant workers from countries such as Nepal and Myanmar are also falling victim to similar scams, according to the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

The Bangladesh High Commission has called on the Malaysian authorities to verify the authenticity of recruitment letters, but the problem persists. Malaysia reopened its doors to Bangladeshi workers last year after a hiatus of around three and a half years.

However, the number of workers who do not find work after arriving in Malaysia is very insignificant compared to the total number of incoming workers and is within the controllable range so far, the high commission said in a press statement on Saturday.

The embassy emphasised that as long as the Malaysian government's hiring process for foreign workers is transparent, there should not be any unemployed workers. This is due to the presence of Labour Department branches throughout Malaysia, as stated in the press release.

The embassy also pointed out that no embassy can fully verify the demand for migrant workers in any country. Therefore, they rely on the approval of the Malaysian authorities, according to the statement.

As of the latest update, Malaysia's Labor Department under the Ministry of Human Resources has approved the hiring of 358,892 new Bangladeshi workers out of a demand for 8,727 workers, with 134,595 workers already in Malaysia. The remaining 225,000 workers are in the process of coming to the country.

The Bangladesh High Commission hopes that if this trend continues, Malaysia will employ around 500,000 new Bangladeshi workers within the next 2-3 years.

Zahedul Hossain, a Bangladeshi worker who fell victim to fraudulent activity, reported that he paid about Tk5 lakh to a recruiting agency called Green Land Overseas through a broker named Ali Akbar in his area. He found out the day before leaving Bangladesh that the employment contract was signed with another agency called Shaheen Travels.

After arriving in Kuala Lumpur, Zahedul and his group were sent to different places to look for jobs, but they were unsuccessful. Moreover, the police detained them once because their three-month temporary pass had expired.

Zahedul added that 9 out of 47 people in his group are still in a detention camp, while he was released after the Bangladesh Embassy's intervention.

Despite receiving a one-month salary from their contracted agent in Malaysia, and with the intervention of the Bangladesh embassy, the group of 47 workers has still not been able to secure new jobs as promised by the embassy. This is not the first time such a situation has occurred, as a previous group of 48 workers faced similar difficulties before ultimately managing to secure jobs with the help of Malaysian authorities.

Regarding the allegation, M Shahadat Hossain Taslim, managing partner of the recruiting agency Shaheen Travels, stated that the workers in question are primarily from Greenland Overseas, and due to the Malaysian system, it is common for workers to be tagged with multiple agencies. 

However, since Greenland Overseas takes responsibility for overseas workers, efforts to employ them continue, he added.

Efforts to obtain a comment from Rehana Arjuman Hye, proprietor of Greenland Overseas, were unsuccessful until the time of filing this report around 8pm yesterday.

Diplomatic letter

While the high commission acknowledged that properly verifying employers by Bangladeshi recruiting agencies could reduce the risk of unemployment of Bangladeshi workers, it claimed that the Malaysian government warned it against inspecting project sites.

It divulged a diplomatic letter that was sent to its high commission, stating that only the Malaysian Labour Department has the sole jurisdiction to inspect local companies.

"It is the responsibility of the Malaysian government to ensure the accuracy of the recruitment demand, which was assured by a representative from the Human Resources Ministry."

However, it revealed that the government's warning had not stopped its on-site investigations in a bid to protect Bangladeshi workers.

This comes after several groups of migrant workers have been left out in the cold, some left stranded at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and not provided with jobs after arriving in the country.

The latest case involved over 200 Bangladeshi and Nepalese migrant workers stranded at a transit home for 40 days in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, and are yet to be given work.