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Asian leaders should be ashamed by Malaysia’s ‘dirty jobs’ claim – J. D. Lovrenciear
The deputy prime minister of Malaysia, who is also the home minister, publicly stated that the job opportunities available in Malaysia are “dirty, dangerous and difficult”, and are offered to the millions of migrant workers coming to Malaysia.
Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi made this assertion in the wake of public outcry here over the government’s announcement to bring in another 1.5 million migrant workers from Bangladesh.
Malaysia currently already has some two million foreign workers of legal status and a much speculated over six million illegal migrants, taking up jobs in the manufacturing, construction, agriculture and other service sectors.
The statement that these “dirty, dangerous and difficult” job opportunities can only be taken up by foreign workers certainly shames the leaders and governments of these sending nations.
Today, Malaysia has workers from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, China and Bangladesh.
Not only are they being sent to Malaysia to take on these “dirty, dangerous and difficult” jobs in Malaysia, but there are also those who end up in the flesh trade.
This sitz-im-laben truly shames the leaders of all these Asian countries who apparently are being perceived as willingly allowing their citizens to do dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs.
Is their leadership in their own lands so devoid of ethical benchmarks that they remain blind and deaf to the fact that their own citizens must risk doing dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs in a foreign country?
And should they not question the Malaysian leaders why the government is shamelessly recruiting citizens of other poorer countries to do such jobs?
Why are these job opportunities not made clean, safe and humanly by the recruiting country?
Or are there far too many gravy-train parasites involved in this chain of modern day slavery that the repatriation of hard currency at the expense of the safety, dignity and honour of their own citizens is all that matters for the leaders and governments of sending nations?
Hopefully in the best interest of humanitarian values, human dignity and citizens’ honour, the leaders of all these sending nations are held accountable for the state of affairs. It should not be clouded by mere economic and financial equations.
Now that Malaysia has officially declared in the open that our jobs available to migrant workers are dirty, dangerous and difficult, will all these leaders continue to send their citizens here or will they start to listen to the many sad stories brought back home by disillusioned, exploited and abused workers? – February 18, 2016.
* J. D. Lovrenciear reads The Malaysian Insider.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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