No more workers will be detained in Malaysia: Nurul

Minister for Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Nurul Islam said Malaysia authorities would not detain any Bangladeshi workers until December as Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur agreed in solving the illegal workers’ issue though discussions.

“The Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur is maintaining close contact with the Malaysian government to find out a solution to undocumented Bangladeshi workers,” the minister said while addressing a seminar in the capital city today.

Reports for Bangladeshi Migration (RBM) organised the seminar at the Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment building in Eskaton on finding the ways of solving the problem of the Bangladeshi workers who failed to obtain proper documents from Malaysia authorities within a stipulated time-frame.

Malaysia authorities swooped down on thousands of illegal foreign workers and detained hundreds of them, including many Bangladeshis, hours after a deadline for registering them passed on June 30.

“I am maintaining a constant contact with the officials of High Commission in Kula Lumpur so we could solve the problem of the undocumented workers,” said the minister.

Additional Secretary of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry Javed Ahmed told the seminar that the Malaysian authorities have already rehired 2.50 lakh Bangladeshi workers providing them with proper documents.

He said the problems of many other Bangladeshis working in Malaysia could also be solved with taking similar initiatives.

“Kuala Lumpur is also considering hiring of 22,000 Bangladeshi workers through G2G (government to government) basis,” he said, adding that this would help to ease the workers’ problem in Malaysia.

Director General of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) Selim Reza also spoke at the seminar.

Member of the RBM Mohsin Ul Karim presented the keynote paper titled ‘Labour Market Situation in Malaysia and Middle East Countries: Present and Future Challenge’ at the seminar presided over by RBM President Firoj Manna.

Source: BSS