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Malaysia-Bangladesh labour migration talks resume despite job scam fears
Malaysia placed a freeze on hiring last year after thousands of Bangladeshi workers were left stranded, exploited by recruitment scams
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Talks to resume the hiring of workers from Bangladesh in Malaysia gathered pace on Tuesday, as migrant rights groups warned of the continued risk of labour cartels operating in both countries.
Malaysia imposed a freeze on migrant workers from Bangladesh – its largest source country for manual labourers – in June last year after the discovery of syndicates charging workers up to US$5,000 each for non-existent jobs that left thousands stranded with no work and vulnerable to exploitation.
On Tuesday, after talks with Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus in Malaysia’s administrative capital of Putrajaya, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said that his government had “given priority” to resuming the hiring of workers, as proposed by Dhaka, starting by helping those who had been left “stranded”.
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In May, Malaysia agreed to allow the hiring of nearly 8,000 out of 17,000 Bangladeshis who were believed to have been duped by job syndicates.
Calling Bangladesh “an important partner”, Anwar said the South Asian nation’s “workers have been instrumental in … contributing to our development.”
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Up to 450,000 Bangladeshis travelled to Malaysia for work between 2021 and 2023, according to labour authorities in Dhaka.
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