KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia began registering up to 2 million illegal immigrant workers Monday in an amnesty program aimed at managing waves of foreigners seeking menial jobs unwanted by Malaysians.
The program should make it easier to fill labor shortages for low-paying jobs at palm oil plantations, factories, construction sites and restaurants.
It also means foreigners like Bangladeshi Jueil Bepari, who for three years has done odd jobs including working as a gas station attendant, will no longer have to dodge Malaysian authorities for fear of being jailed, whipped with a cane or deported.
“I am always in fear of being caught. I dare not go to the shops or visit my friends,” 23-year-old Bepari said after registering and receiving a six-month pass to stay in the country while applying for a work permit.
The government hopes that absorbing illegal laborers like Bepari into the mainstream work force it can allow outsiders to take up the many menial jobs shunned by locals. It also plans to build an immigrant database, including fingerprints, to improve security.
Malaysia has some 4 million foreign workers, only half of whom are in the Southeast Asian country legally. Despite years of earlier efforts to cut dependence on foreign labor, demand for foreign workers is likely to keep growing at a yearly average of 6-7 percent until 2015 — twice as fast as the overall labor market, according to director Shamsuddin Bardan of the Malaysian Employers Federation.
As a relatively wealthy nation in the region, Malaysia attracts people from impoverished or war-torn places including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar who seek stability, better economic opportunity or a way to enter other countries such as Australia.
The amnesty program involves fingerprinting each immigrant worker and checking their employment credentials. Officials said those not already employed or unable to join the work force would be deported.
One Malaysian state began the program earlier on July 18. Eastern Sabah, on Borneo island, has so far signed up 116,000 workers, the Home Ministry said. Sabah ends its program Aug. 8, while the rest of the country finishes Aug. 14.
Some labor activists urged the government to halt the program, saying more oversight is needed to prevent workers from being treated unfairly. Rights groups Tenaganita and the Malaysian Trade Union Congress voiced concern that workers whose employers did not renew their work visas could also be penalized.
They also alleged that some of the 336 companies hired to help run the program were charging more than the allowed 35-ringgit ($12) registration fee.
The Immigration Department vowed to investigate any alleged violations, communications director Aiza Mahani Mozi said, without elaborating on whether complaints had been received.
The program should make it easier to fill labor shortages for low-paying jobs at palm oil plantations, factories, construction sites and restaurants.
It also means foreigners like Bangladeshi Jueil Bepari, who for three years has done odd jobs including working as a gas station attendant, will no longer have to dodge Malaysian authorities for fear of being jailed, whipped with a cane or deported.
“I am always in fear of being caught. I dare not go to the shops or visit my friends,” 23-year-old Bepari said after registering and receiving a six-month pass to stay in the country while applying for a work permit.
The government hopes that absorbing illegal laborers like Bepari into the mainstream work force it can allow outsiders to take up the many menial jobs shunned by locals. It also plans to build an immigrant database, including fingerprints, to improve security.
Malaysia has some 4 million foreign workers, only half of whom are in the Southeast Asian country legally. Despite years of earlier efforts to cut dependence on foreign labor, demand for foreign workers is likely to keep growing at a yearly average of 6-7 percent until 2015 — twice as fast as the overall labor market, according to director Shamsuddin Bardan of the Malaysian Employers Federation.
As a relatively wealthy nation in the region, Malaysia attracts people from impoverished or war-torn places including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar who seek stability, better economic opportunity or a way to enter other countries such as Australia.
The amnesty program involves fingerprinting each immigrant worker and checking their employment credentials. Officials said those not already employed or unable to join the work force would be deported.
One Malaysian state began the program earlier on July 18. Eastern Sabah, on Borneo island, has so far signed up 116,000 workers, the Home Ministry said. Sabah ends its program Aug. 8, while the rest of the country finishes Aug. 14.
Some labor activists urged the government to halt the program, saying more oversight is needed to prevent workers from being treated unfairly. Rights groups Tenaganita and the Malaysian Trade Union Congress voiced concern that workers whose employers did not renew their work visas could also be penalized.
They also alleged that some of the 336 companies hired to help run the program were charging more than the allowed 35-ringgit ($12) registration fee.
The Immigration Department vowed to investigate any alleged violations, communications director Aiza Mahani Mozi said, without elaborating on whether complaints had been received.
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