PETALING JAYA: The Bar Council has called on the government to embark on a comprehensive programme to resolve the issue of undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia.
Its president Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor (pic) said the programme should include an amnesty and regularisation programme to enable undocumented migrants to be regulated.
“The continued inaction in resolving the issue of undocumented migrants compromises the human rights of this large group of people on our shores, ” he said in a statement on Thursday (Dec 19) to commemorate International Migrants Day which was observed a day earlier.
Malaysia hosts more than two million documented migrant workers, while there are an estimated five million undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia.
Fareed also urged the government to make public the report that the Independent Committee on the Management of Foreign Workers had submitted to them.
He added that they supported the recommendation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for the management of migrant workers be placed under the purview of the Human Resources Ministry.
“The Malaysian Bar urges the government to carry out the recommendations of the MACC expeditiously. Work, not security, should be the cornerstone of the nation’s comprehensive policy on migrant workers, ” said Fareed.
Fareed also commended the government’s move in joining the UN’s Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (Compact) which took place in December last year.
“The government should take the lead in implementing the provisions of this Compact to ensure that the rights of migrant workers in Malaysia are protected, ” he said.
Fareed also hoped that the government would implement the Bar Council’s recommendations of “Developing a Comprehensive Policy Framework for Migrant Labour”.
These included working closely with country-of-origin governments to fine-tune the recruitment system, extending the government’s legal aid programmes to cater for migrants and refugees in Malaysia, and to ensure full respect for the human rights and humane treatment of migrants, regardless of their migration status. -The Star