Malaysia has launched an investigation to uncover how hundreds of migrant workers arrived from South Asia without jobs, despite having paid steep fees to get employment, officials and rights groups said.
The issue revives concerns over labour abuses in Malaysia, a key manufacturing hub at the heart of the global supply chain that has facedHundreds of workers from Bangladesh and Nepal have arrived since December after paying up to 20,000 ringgit to middlemen to get employment, officials of two rights groups who interviewed dozens of the workers told Reuters.
"These workers are at high risk of forced labour and severe destitution," said independent labour activist Andy Hall, whose team has been in contact with the migrant workers. The International Labour Organisation ranks deception, along with debt bondage stemming from the large recruitment fee, and passport seizure among its indicators of 'forced labour'.
Last week, V. Sivakumar, the minister for human resources, visited a group of 226 Bangladeshi and Nepali workers who had been in the Southeast Asian country for 40 days without the jobs they had been promised.
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