Jobless in Malaysia: 4 Bangladeshi migrants file police reports

Four Bangladeshi nationals have filed police reports in Malaysia after claiming that their employer had failed to provide them with jobs despite them being in the country for over seven months.

The complaints were filed with the Sentul police headquarters in the country last night, reports Free Malaysia Today.

The victims said they came to Malaysia in October after being promised a monthly pay of 1,500 Malaysian ringgit to work for a construction company.

They are being housed in Chow Kit, according to the report published online today.

"From the first day we entered Malaysia until today, we have not been given any jobs or salary. A total of 161 workers, including us, are suffering," they said.

"It has already been more than seven months and we are still jobless. We don't have any money to buy food," the victims said.

"All our passports are being withheld by our employer, who wants us to pay 6,000 ringgits to get them back," they said.

The men were accompanied to the police station by representatives from Parti Sosialis Malaysia.

The men said several of them had raised their plight with the labour department office in Subang Jaya on January 4 but received no feedback for two months. They were then directed to the department's headquarters in Putrajaya.

They said they were informed by an officer at the headquarters that their employer had been told to either send them back to Bangladesh or help them secure new employers.

They said the employer was also asked to pay the wages due to them since they entered the country in October, adding that the office is still waiting for feedback from the employer.

"We are filing a police report now as we hope the police will intervene in this matter to get our passports back from the employer," they said.

Last month, Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Human Resources Minister Steven Sim said employers who withhold workers' passports and fail to pay them wages must face legal action under the Immigration Act 1959/63 and the Employment Act 1955.

This came after FMT reported that a company in Cheras, which recruited 94 Bangladeshi workers, had failed to provide them with jobs, proper living quarters, or adequate food.

Saifuddin and Sim said such companies would also face charges under the Employees' Minimum Standards of Housing, Accommodations and Amenities Act 1990 for failing to provide proper accommodation, and would be investigated under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007.

Their approval letters and remaining quotas for foreign workers will be cancelled, and they will be blacklisted from applying for foreign workers in the future, they said.