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Article

2 Jul 2018

Author:
Ariel Ramchandani, The Atlantic

Malaysia: Migrant workers in the electronic industry remain vulnerable to debt bondage & forced labour

"Forced Labor Is the Backbone of the World's Electronics Industry," 28 June 2018

Malaysia bills itself as “heaven for foreign companies.”...The electronics industry—the country’s largest manufacturing secto...accounts for over 36 percent of the country’s exports and a quarter of its employment...

At the heart of this economic success are migrant workers... Estimates of the number of foreign workers in Malaysia vary widely, from the government’s count of almost 1.8 million to perhaps twice as many, which would amount to a quarter of the country’s workforce. Migrant-worker advocates estimate one-third of those workers are undocumented.

In 2014, the watchdog organization Verité released a study on migrant workers in the electronics sector in Malaysia. Among a sample of more than 400 foreign electronics workers, at least 32 percent were, by Verité’s definition, forced to work against their will. According to the report, “these results suggest that forced labor is present in the Malaysian electronics industry in more than isolated incidents, and can indeed be characterized as widespread.”

...[T]he problem typically begins at recruitment, the kickoff to a cycle of debt and bondage...The...study found that 92 percent of foreign workers paid recruitment fees to get their jobs, often exceeding what's standard in the industry...Workers can find themselves paying for a levy for a work permit...as well as fees for housing and their visa. Although it is against the law, many employers also confiscate and hold...passports in order to keep them from leaving untenable situation...

Migrants in Malaysia do not usually enter illegally...workers find themselves undocumented when they flee a job, or their employment contract is not renewed, since their visas are tied to their employers...Well-known companies, many of which are monitored by watchdog groups...tend to have better track records. The problems come further down their supply chains...