Amnesty to meet labour shortage
Published on: Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia is to offer amnesty to some of its two million illegal immigrants in a plan to ease labour shortages in the plantation and service industries, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said Monday."(It's) not legalising them to be citizens but legalising them to stay (and work in Malaysia) legally," said Hishammuddin, who is responsible for internal security.With one of Asia's largest populations of foreign labourers, Malaysia relies heavily on immigrants, especially from neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, to clean homes, care for children and work in construction, plantations and factories.
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Many of the illegals are poorly paid Indonesians who work long hours in menial jobs shunned by locals.Hishammuddin said the scheme to legalise the workers would allow them to gain employment and not be exploited by human traffickers.He did not specify who among Malaysia's illegal immigrant population would be offered the chance to stay, nor were the terms under which they would be granted asylum immediately clear.Malaysia is also seen as a staging post for trafficking gangs moving people from Afghanistan and Myanmar to Indonesia and Australia.
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Malaysia hopes to launch the programme in July.The waterway between Malaysia and neighbouring Indonesia is porous and therefore a popular smuggling and people-trafficking route.
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Numerous boats have sunk with lives lost, most recently last week when a rickety boat capsized and seven illegal Indonesians went missing.Hishammuddin said Malaysia is expected to fully implement its biometric system at all border entry points by end of this month in a bid to check cross border crime involving foreigners.The system, which was studied and tested for one-and-a-half years by the ministry, had so far been implemented in several entry points since June 1."We have started (using) the biometric system, but a glitch was detected at the Singapore-Malaysia border over the past few days and we are in the midst of solving it," he said, after launching the new building for Dang Wangi Police Headquarters, Monday.The construction of the new building was completed last year at a cost of RM125 million. Present was Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar.Hishammuddin explained that with the implementation of the biometric system, all foreigners would be given ample time to register their thumbprints to be stored for reference in the Immigration Department's database."Apart from knowing their arrivals in Malaysia, the system will also ensure that the foreigners will not depart or left the country using a different name or passport," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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