UN agency asks KL to hire refugees

UN agency asks KL to hire refugees

Reuters, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia should allow 50,000 refugees, many from neighboring
Indonesia and Myanmar, to work in the country legally in order to
make up for a labor shortage, the UN refugee agency urged on
Monday.

Volker Turk, representative of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Malaysia's recent
expulsion of more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers had
created a void.

"You have a refugee population here who cannot be deported,"
Turk told reporters at a meeting organized by the agency. "Why
not use this population? Why not allow them to work legally?"
Malaysian Home (Interior) Minister Azmi Khalid could not be
immediately reached for comment.

The UNHCR says 40,000 of Malaysia's refugees are registered
with it, among them 20,000 from Indonesia's war-torn province of
Aceh, and 10,000 members of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority.

Malaysia is not yet a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the
Status of Refugees, which has been ratified by 145 nations. It
views refugees as illegal immigrants.

Late last year Malaysia agreed to let the Rohingyas stay in
the country temporarily, which meant they need no longer fear
deportation, but Turk said the policy had yet to be implemented.

"We harbor hopes that this decision will be implemented by
World Refugee Day on June 20. That would be the best gift for all
the refugees here," he said.

Turk said Malaysia had detained about 900 refugees in its
illegal labor crackdown in March.

The crackdown followed an immigration amnesty, during which
more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers -- mainly Indonesians
-- left in return for freedom from prosecution, but the exodus
caused some acute shortages of unskilled labor.

Malaysia relies on foreign unskilled labor to do dirty, poorly
paid work that locals shun, but the number of illegal immigrants,
estimated at 800,000 or more ahead of the amnesty, causes the
government a fiscal and administrative headache.

But their sudden departure hit a range of industries such as
the construction and plantation sectors, leading to concerns
among economists about the potential impact on economic growth
and on inflation through higher wages.