(Casualty in)Human Traffic
Sep 12th, 2007 by Tian
I bumped into a few taxi company staff who recognized me when I was hanging around KLIA before boarding to Langkawi (11 Sept). As usual, they complained about the sluggishness of the economy. As persons involved in tourism industry, they spoke from direct experience that Visit Malaysia Year has been a total washout.
Todate, tourist volume has been pathetic. There was only notable rise of migrant workers arrival. Speaking of migrant workers, they informed me that probably 3-4 days ago a Bangladeshi worker died in the airport.
In recent months, there have been a lot of cases of abuses against Bangladeshi. For some strange reasons, the labour supplying agencies frequently refused to accept the arriving migrant workers. In this case, the agent took out all the new arrival but left one of the workers in the airport.
It seems that migrant workers are now treated like goods. The agents have right to “reject” on the receiving dock.
The “rejected” labour was then left wondering in limbo in the airport. The workers were also not given any food. Nobody care to resolve their problem. The cause of the death was probably due to poor conditions or could well be starvation.
Apparently, the government took some measures in respond to the tragedy. From now on, the migrant workers would be transported out of the airport and placed under Immigration detention.
Unfortunately, there was no inquiry into the death. Needless to say, the public heard nothing about this incident.
Before my boarding, I met Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy who just came back from holiday in Australia. He looked healthy and cheerful, I am quite sure his staff didn’t trouble him with this little incident at the airport.
there is always 2 sides to a coin and the same applies to an argument. malaysia can be proud in the sense our country has progressed some what in a rate which is highly enviable by some poor desperate nation such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar and so forth. thus, this has attracted them to come over to our shore not as tourists but to find an honest living to cater for their families whom they left. yet when they arrive here, malaysian agents and companies who hire them seem to be acting worse than the caucasian planters riding on horseback during the yesteryears. we tend to ill treat these workers and for some they were basically instead of living for a dream is living in a night mare when employers and agents just dump them like waste without any recourse to return to their country of origin. without any sort of assistance they tend to resort to criminal activities and would even for a small amount perhaps be hired killers.
when this happen who is to be blamed ? people will naturally blame the government for a lack of responsibility yet when we examine closely the issue the operators/agents and employers are equally to be blamed too for their irresponsible act. these people instead of being drag into court usually escape with a fine tantamount to a slap on the hands and the very next day, they will still be doing the same thing.
we have to understand and educate these people or i should say generally malaysians that these people too are human beings with feelings, who can love and hate and for us to treat them worse than animals we should be ashamed of ourself. it does not reflect our status as a nation at all that has gained independence or as a developed nation. if we dont like their creed or the colour of their skin, then we as consumers who engage these workers should recruit workers whom we prefer rather than blatantly mistreating them and not only causing hurt but at times causing death. have we no heart or feeling that the person whom we may have caused great harm is actually a husband to a wife, a father to a child, or a brother to his siblings .. are we so inhumane nowadays due to our economic advancement that it has clouded our eyes and our feelings for fellow human beings. yet when there is a disaster either in our own country or our neighbouring countries we seem to be very fast in giving out alms and assistance whether is it done sincerely or as a means to cleanse ourself from our own mis-doings in the past.
we should always remember that these foreign workers if given a choice would never want to leave their own country but as there is no viable option available to them, they have no choice but to seek better prospect else where. the same as well occurred for some of our forefathers, who sailed all the way from China/ India and even Sumatera seeking better lifelihood .. in Malaya but the difference is perhaps our forefathers were better treated than the foreign workers of today. bear in mind too, at one time in our country’s history, there was a lot of malaysians who migrated to australia, new zealand and the UK seeking better prospect and these fellow malaysians were not too badly treated by their respect employers. i may add some perhaps we even married into the family of their employers ! ..
as such for the sake of the one global family, the agents and employers should take steps to ensure that foreign workers are accorded the dignity of being a human and given the basic care and concern of a human being and not be treated worse than animals.
The other side of the coin is the experience of one of my clients.Initially the banglas agreed to workin the oilpalm estate. So he took them all to the estate (which has all facilities). On reaching,they refused to even disembark from the bus. He had no alternative but to take them to KL and dump the whole lot.
After about 3 such incidents he is just fed up with banglas who have cost him alossof more than RM1 million.
Now he`s taking the indonesians.
Sir: Malaysia may need the services of foreign workers, no doubt they help contribute to our economy , directly or indirectly ; and at the same time they do help their families back home (remittances). Kind of win-win situation. But what worry most of us are the bad elements amongst them - creating security/social problems, eg house-breaks, robberies, etc etc. Can PKR, or other bodies (NGOs) help the authorities to manage those problem? Tq.