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Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is considering allowing refugees to work while awaiting resettlement abroad, a report said on Monday, after an industry group said the measure could help to ease a labor shortage.

Rights groups have accused Malaysia of mistreating the nearly 80,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in the country, mainly from military-ruled Burma.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told the Star newspaper the matter was being considered due to the fact that the refugees’ stay in Malaysia was only temporary.

“The suggestion might work but we need to look at it from all angles,” he said. “My ministry cannot decide on this alone. We will engage the Foreign Ministry and probably even foreign missions and other relevant authorities to get as many points of view as possible.”

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was quoted as supporting the idea. “It will benefit the country if refugees with certain expertise are allowed to work while they are here,” he said.

The United Nations refugee agency in Malaysia said it was ready to support the initiative.

“We believe that this is in the long-term humanitarian, economic and security interest of Malaysia, and consistent with Malaysia’s own humanitarian tradition in helping those in need,” spokeswoman Yante Ismail said.

Malaysia, which has about 2.2 million migrant workers, is one of Asia’s largest importers of labor and relies heavily on foreigners for maids and to work in plantation and factories.

Several parties, including the Malaysian Trades Union Congress have called on the government to allow refugees to work, particularly in labor-strapped sectors, instead of importing more foreign workers.

Widyarka Ryananta, the councilor for information, social and cultural affairs at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, told the Jakarta Globe on Monday that Indonesian workers eyeing jobs in Malaysia should not be concerned.

“This is still a discourse. Malaysia has always faced the problem of its young people refusing to do dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs,” Widyarka said. “And our workers can do those jobs well. I am sure we are better than the refugees,” he said, adding that Indonesian workers had more experience than the refugees, who were also from Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.

Widyarka said Malaysia was suffering from a shortage of workers because Indonesia’s policy was to stop sending migrant workers there.

In June 2009, the Indonesian government suspended the sending of new domestic helpers, construction workers and plantation hands to Malaysia following public outrage over the case of an Indonesian maid who was tortured for three years by her Malaysian employer.

Talks between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur over revisions to a 2006 labor agreement broke down last year.

Iskandar Maula, director of overseas workers at Indonesia’s Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, said: “Our workers are better than the refugees. We understand their language, culture and surely the employers know us better than others.”

Iskandar said the ministry would not immediately lift the ban on sending migrant workers. He said headway needed to made in discussions with Malaysia. “We will not immediately start sending migrant workers again just because of this.”

It is estimated that there are four million Indonesian migrant workers overseas, with two million in Malaysia. Only around 1.2 million of them hold legal documents, according to the Manpower Ministry.



JG, AFP, AP