By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 2004 (IPS)

Take advantage of the general amnesty and leave before the extended deadline of Dec. 31 or face arrest, fine, whipping and a long jail term.

That’s the choice the Malaysian government has given Nepali worker Lokesh Madhu, 28 – an undocumented factory worker at a furniture plant in Kota Tinggi town in the southern state of Johore. But it is an offer that Lokesh and thousands of other undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia are unable to accept.

The Malaysian cabinet last month agreed to extend an amnesty period, from Nov. 17 to Dec. 31, for undocumented migrant workers to return to their own countries. Under existing laws, those without valid working documents are liable to a fine of up to 10,000 ringgit (2,600 U.S. dollars) or a jail term of up to five years or both and a whipping.

Lokesh and about 60 Nepalese colleagues entered the country as tourists last December. They had paid a Malaysian syndicate to bring them here as visitors and secure them work, without valid documents, at a Taiwanese-owned furniture factory that exports ‘assemble- it-yourself’ chairs and tables to China.

Then suddenly last month the factory folded; the manager absconded and all local staff disappeared.

”How can I go back when I have not earned enough to pay the debts in my village?” asked Lokesh. ”The manager has disappeared without paying three months wages, the airlines are fully booked until March and ticket prices have sky rocketed.”

”We are starving…we don’t have money to even buy instant noodles,” he said referring to the plight of over 300 workers now stranded at an overcrowded hostel. ”We have no work; no money and no hope…we are stranded.”

”And now the Malaysian government is threatening us to leave or jail us for five years. What can we do…we are at their mercy,” Lokesh told IPS as his colleagues crowded around and nodded their heads in agreement.

”What about our unpaid wages,” said another worker. ”Are we to leave empty handed?”

As the deadline nears for the start of a massive operation to arrest some two million undocumented foreign workers, an increasing number of small and medium sized factories are closing. Owners and managers are absconding leaving thousands of foreign workers stranded without wages and the means to return home.

”Unscrupulous employers are taking advantage of the panic caused by the threat of a massive crackdown to temporarily close operations and abandon their workers,” a labour expert told IPS. ”They do this to save millions in unpaid wages.”

As a matter of last recourse, more and more abandoned foreign workers seem to be gathering outside their embassies, in the Malaysian capital, to seek help or to protest against their countries’ inaction over the Malaysian government’s attempts to jail them.

Officials at affected foreign embassies here say they are overwhelmed by the large numbers of their nationals stranded in the country because of absconding employers.

”We are equally worried over the panic that has set in as the start of the operation nears,” a diplomat from a South Asian embassy told IPS. ”We issue as many exit visas as is needed but there are not enough departing flights available.”

”It is also unfair to send the workers home when their wages are not paid…they are already facing debts and unemployment back home,” the diplomat said.

He urged the Malaysian government to relax the rules, freeze the crackdown and extent the amnesty for as long as needed to give ample time and reduce panic to ensure orderly departure.

”We also need the time to locate the absconding employers and recover the unpaid wages,” he said.

Nobody can estimate the amount outstanding but it is believed to run into millions of ringgit.

The government, however, is adamant and busy mobilising a civil defense and home guard force of about 400,000 members to go after undocumented foreign workers. It has announced that after Jan. 1, foreign workers will be officially categorised in Bahasa Malaysia as ‘di buru’ or ‘the hunted’.

”We will not tolerate any foreign workers living and working in Malaysia without valid permits,” Abdul Rahman Ibrahim, the Home Ministry’s parliamentary secretary, said last week. ”We are going to take tough action.”

He said some 120,000 undocumented workers from 43 countries had left Malaysia.

”But the majority remain, giving us no choice but to take tough action,” he said.

About 1.28 million foreigners work legally in the construction, plantation and domestic service sectors. It is estimated another two million work without permits. In both cases the majority are from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines.

The government said it will issue chip-based ‘smart identity cards’ to the legal workers to keep track of their whereabouts.

Anybody without the smart cards is deemed an ‘illegal’ and authorities will conduct a 14-day investigation before taking the undocumented worker to court.

Last year, some 9,000 migrants were caned for working without valid permits. Employers face the same penalties for hiring undocumented workers but to date not one has been jailed or whipped.

Human rights groups have hit out at the Malaysian government’s plan to begin arresting and deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrant workers in the coming weeks.

”Refugees and victims of human trafficking may be caught up in the sweeps and deported instead of receiving protection,” said the New York-based Human Rights Watch in a statement.

”When Malaysia conducted mass deportations two years ago, dozens of migrant workers died of dehydration and disease while stranded in transit areas for months,” said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of the Women’s Rights division of Human Rights Watch. ”These deportations will only drive refugees and trafficking victims deeper underground and put them at greater risk of exploitation.”

Malaysia’s National Human Rights Commission, SUHAKAM, has documented overcrowded conditions in detention camps and wants the government to ensure fundamental rights are upheld during the deportation exercise.

”We must make the difference between trafficking victims, abused migrant workers and refugees from other undocumented migrants,” SUHAKAM said. ”Many foreign women now detained in prisons are actually victims of trafficking.”

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