Malaysia comes under fire for plan to whip illegals
Malaysia comes under fire for plan to whip illegals
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Government plans to whip illegal immigrants in Malaysia were attacked as "inhuman and barbaric" by labor and rights groups Thursday.
"We condemn the move to whip migrant workers. It is dehumanizing," said Irene Fernandez, director of Tenaganita, a group which champions women's' and migrant workers' rights.
"Migrant workers sell, mortgage their land or property, enter into severe debt through loans and pay for their legal employment in Malaysia," Tenaganita said in a statement.
The statement said the government by proposing whipping to deal with the problem was behaving like a batterer.
"The government has to come up with a comprehensive plan to handle the issue -- right from recruitment, employers' attitudes and violation of employees' rights," Fernandez said.
Elizabeth Wong, secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society, said the group was totally against caning, which she described as "a form of torture."
"It is an inhuman way to treat people. It is barbaric.
"There will be many instances of migrant workers who come to Malaysia legally but later become illegals when they are suddenly terminated (fired)," she said.
Wong said the government should focus on entry points to deter illegal immigrants.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced this week that new legislation providing for caning of illegal immigrants would be submitted to the cabinet soon.
The Star newspaper said it had learned that a maximum of six cuts with a cane would be added to increased fines and jail terms, which now stand at maximums of 10,000 ringgit (US$2,600) and five years.
Most foreign workers in Malaysia come from Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Myanmar and the Philippines.
The government had toyed before with the idea of whipping illegals, which is practiced in neighboring Singapore, but dropped the plan after opposition from rights groups.
But the arrest of some 50,000 foreigners for various immigration offenses in the first six months of this year seems to have prompted a rethink.
"The committee agreed on the need to adopt this approach as a deterrent," Abdullah said on Wednesday.
Authorities have stepped up deportation of illegals, sending 14,000 back in the first seven months of the year and nearly 90,000 in 2000.
Tenaganita said its research showed that many foreigners became illegal after arriving in Malaysia because those who brought them in failed to do the necessary documentation.
It said there was no comprehensive policy or protection for foreign laborers, adding a law proposed in 1995 to cover foreign workers' rights was dropped without explanation.
Malaysia is also home to some 700,000 legal foreign workers, but a weakened economy has led to job cuts and calls for curbs on immigration.