Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 ― In a harrowing tale of modern-day slavery, a migrant worker from India who answered an oil and gas industry recruitment call in Malaysia has claimed he was sold to a “human trafficking mafia” here and forced to labour in an oil palm waste factory in Sibu, Sarawak under inhumane conditions.
Lokesh Sapaliga, 27, told Mumbai-based Mid Day how he was promised a well-paying job at an oil and gas rig by Ram Support Service, a placement agency based in India, and then smuggled to Borneo Malaysia where he was forced to work for up to 20 hours a day alongside hundreds of other migrant workers under close watch by heavy-handed factory guards.
“The agents smuggled us into a unit of CM Fibre Processing Sdn Bhd, a factory based in Sibu, Malaysia. Since I was inside, they avoided checks on the way,” Sapaliga was quoted saying in the report, which recounted a two-hour drive where he was allegedly stuffed into a car boot after flying into the Malaysian capital on September 19.
The report, published yesterday, did not detail how Sapaliga arrived in Sibu, a major town in Sarawak over 1,000km away from Kuala Lumpur, and separated by the South China Sea.
According to Sapaliga, it was only after he arrived at the factory that he understood he was now among hundreds of “slaves” whom he believed to be originally from India and Nepal and forced to work in “unhygienic and inhuman” conditions.
“We worked for 14, 18 and even 20 hours a day for a paltry sum of Rs 400 (RM22). My hands and legs used to go numb from exhaustion. Slaves who dared to complain were thrashed by the factory guards,” Sapaliga was quoted saying.
A check online showed CM Fibre to be a Sibu-based factory set up in 2007 to convert palm oil waste into raw fibre for export.
It is a subsidiary of the Sri Minyak Group Bhd, which was established in 1986, and had dealt with oil and gas giant, Shell in Sarawak for over 26 years.
Sapaliga, who had reportedly worked as an electrician in the Middle East prior to his ordeal in Malaysia, also recounted nightmarish sleeping conditions where 15 to 20 of the factory workers fought for space in the shipping containers where the only ventilation came from one ceiling fan.
“We were also made to work night shifts without prior notice,” he told Mid Day, saying that it was impossible for workers get any sleep as their sleeping quarters were adjacent to a welding unit and their mattresses were infested with bedbugs.
He also complained of starvation despite the thrice-daily meals. The usual rice and vegetables in gravy served on unwashed plates, were often stale and crawling with worms; and sometimes the fish that varied their bland offering was rotten.
He also recounted hazardous working conditions where safety gear and medical facilities were non-existent, and where the guards forced the workers to continue despite their injuries.
“There was a Punjabi man who had broken his hand in an accident, but they made him work. Another worker had also sustained severe burn injuries while working near the furnace,” the Indian national recounted, adding that he too suffered injuries after a metal rod landed on him.
Sapaliga claimed he managed to escape on October 21, after bribing the agency that had brought him to Malaysia to smuggle him out of the factory.
He reportedly made his way to Mumbai two days later and lodged a report with Nallasapora police on November 5.
Citing Indian police, Mid Day reported that the Indian recruiter Ram Support Service shut down after its owner absconded.
The news report is likely to deal a further blow to Malaysia’s already dented global image among foreign workers.
In June, Malaysia and Thailand were downgraded to the lowest possible rating in an annual American report on combating modern slavery, which lifted China and Sudan from that status to a “watch list.”
However, Putrajaya argued that the US State Department had relied on “unverified information, provided by dubious organisations” in evaluating Malaysia for its Trafficking in Persons Report 2014.
Source: Malay Mail Online
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