Held in Kuala Lumpur on the 9th of May 2024
The Tripartite-plus Workshop on Labour Migration, Smuggling of Migrants was held on 9 May 2024 at Intercontinental Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. This event is part of a larger research project into the movement of migrant labour into Malaysia, the relevant legal framework of migration, and the allegations of corruption in the recruitment process, and was jointly organised by C4 Center as well as the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Currently, a large portion of Malaysia’s workforce — especially in occupations considered dirty, dangerous, demeaning (3D) — is comprised of migrant labour, and demand for migrant labour continues to grow. As a result of this, networks of corruption and cross-border crime have erupted in order to facilitate the movement of migrant labour into Malaysia outside of legal channels, ranging from job scams to human smuggling and trafficking operations. Hence, the overall research programme here aims to examine recruitment and admission practices on migrant worker management, and identifying gaps in the processes that enable rent-seeking activities and labour exploitation, and that leave migrant workers vulnerable to irregular migration, forced labour, smuggling and trafficking. This workshop in particular aimed to present C4 Center’s initial report on corruption and governance issues within migrant labour recruitment to a wide variety of stakeholders and to receive their feedback. It also aimed to collect more perspectives from these groups in what their specific challenges were in terms of confronting and dealing with the issues, to collectively seek solutions and steps forward from different perspectives.
Subject matter experts within the labour and migration space were invited to speak at this event. The opening remarks were presented by Rebecca Miller, Regional Coordinator, Human Trafficking & Migrant Smuggling, UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ROSEAP); Nilim Baruah, Senior Migration Specialist, DWT, ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP); Pushpan Murugiah, Chief Executive Officer, C4 Center. The panel discussion, “Labour Migration Challenges and Opportunities” featured the panellists Engrit Liaw, Malaysian Trade Unions Congress representative; Dr Andika Wahab, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia; Adrian Pereira, North-South Initiative; Vinothaa Selvatoray, Malaysiakini.
The event was attended by members of government and enforcement agencies, diplomatic corps, members of civil society organisations, and private sector representatives who are familiar with migrant labour recruitment processes. These groups engaged in breakout room discussions separately, with moderators leading the discussions according to predetermined questions and issues to focus on. The topics of the three discussions were “Improving recruitment and migrant worker management practices”, “Upholding Labour Rights and combating Forced Labour, Trafficking in Persons, and Smuggling of Migrants”, and “Preventing rent-seeking activities and promoting transparency”. Since the groups were separated according to sector and industry, they were allowed to speak freely and openly, as well as bounce talking points off of each other. In total, the workshop was attended by over 40 participants across the different sectors. The findings from these focus group discussions will be instrumental in furthering the research into migrant labour corruption, and will be incorporated into a larger report on this subject.
