News

The migration:

A mix of economic and political factors has opened Sabah up to migrants from its closest neighbors Indonesia and Philippines since the 1970’s starting with the Filipino Muslims fleeing a separatist insurgency followed by economic migrants. The push of poverty and demand for cheap labour in Sabah's palm-oil plantations and its labour-intensive construction and manufacturing industries have kept them coming. Foreign workers provide Sabah employers with the labour pool they desire, and documented workers with the jobs they need.



However a great number of these foreign workers come into the state by air travel entering as tourists to look for work but the bulk of these migrants cross the porous borders by land or sea without any valid documents often paying a lot of money to be smuggled into the country.



The population:

Looking at the population distribution, the statistics in 2005 reflect that non-citizen for Sabah comprises about 25% which is about 747,800 out of the total population 3 million. The formal statistic reflects about 31% (230,000) are documented workers while the rest do not have documents – mainly Filipinos and Indonesians. A leading authority on the issue, Dr Chong Eng Leong believes it is far higher. Unlike some countries, most of the migrant workers bring their dependents or start a family in Sabah thus if we consider their growing dependents, the number of actual non-Sabahans are very much higher. The state unemployment rate is at 5.7%.



Employment of foreign workers:

In Malaysia, employment of foreign workers is allowed in the construction, plantation, service and manufacturing sectors. The Task Force on Employment of Foreign Workers, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, is the approving authority for the employment of lower skills foreign workers. An annual levy is imposed to ensure that foreign labour is employed only when necessary with different rates depending on varies categories of workers.



Out of economic desperation, the undocumented workers are willing to work for far less pay than legal residents with no security benefits. The supply of legal labour is one of the issues that cause the increase of undocumented workers. The high levy discourages legalization of these workers.



The Social Responsibility of the Government to provide them with free education and health facilities were withdrawn as the burden was too great for the state thus the non-citizens need to pay the full cost. However in reality, the migrant workers often left without paying their hospital bills which amounted to RM11.36 million in 2004 while the public educational institutions have limited seats to offer due to the lack of space or teachers.



There are schools started for migrant’s children in the plantations with the cooperation with the State government, plantation employers, NGOs and the Philippine and Indonesia government.



Legalization of undocumented workers:

Migrant workers, being such a high percentage of the population of Sabah does contribute to the economy as they helped to develop the agricultural sector, building, service industry and construction sector. Filipino Muslims refugee numbering around 60,000 is provided with the IMM13 refugee document where the procedures for employment are easier than other foreign workers. To be able to legally work in Sabah, the worker need a valid passport, approved working permit, health check up and pay up the levy imposed by the Immigration Ministry. Starting from 2008, the government introduced the Mobile Immigration Enforcement Systems (MIES) base on the biometric system for all foreigners to facilitate verification.



Reasons for not legalizing migrants

Red tape in obtaining all the necessary at the originating country level and destination country level.

Fears of dealing with the authorities.

Employers often prefer to hire undocumented workers to avoid paying government levies for hiring foreign workers.

Limited ranges of jobs in selected industries are opened for migrant workers.

At the point of entry to the state – most migrants are still looking for work thus they are unable to apply for work pass.

Repatriations

There have been regular evictions of undocumented immigrants, but for the past few years the operation has shifted them into a higher gear.

In 2002 around 20,000 illegal immigrants were expelled in the operation, and 200,000 made use of an amnesty period.

In 2007, 26,552 are arrested and deported.

National Security Council of Malaysia, the Police and the Immigration Department launched a three-month Statewide registration of all foreign workers, including those without proper documents, in all sectors starting in Aug to Nov2008 for foreign workers already in Sabah and is employed. The exercise is meant to have a databank of all foreign workers in the State using biometric thumb-print identification. However the many undocumented workers had gone back to their countries or had gone into hiding before the operation started. The integrated operation involved Police, Immigration, People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) and National Registration Department (NRD). The cost to tax payers? RM50 million for the logistics requirements of the operations.

To assist workers to get valid documents, Malaysian consulates had been specially set up in Nunukan, Indonesia and Zamboanga City, the Philippines, respectively for people who wanted to work in Sabah.

Often, undocumented workers are detained for a lengthy period as their Embassy is unable to speed up the documentation process to deport them. There are three detention camps in Sabah that could easily accommodate more than 2,500 people at any one time. The coordination by the authorities between Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines should be enhanced to ensure a safe and prompt repatriation to their originating country. Many of those now facing an uncomfortable spell in detention and deportation will likely try to slip back, as they have in the past crackdowns. However the authorities felt that with the system of fingerprinting arrested non-documented workers using biometric readers, it will be easier to prevent them from returning.



It must be stated here that few believe that forced repatriations offer a concrete solution to stemming the flood.



Street Children

One of the issue that had arises of great concern is the abandoned migrant street children thus the government has provided a RM 5 million centre for street children (Pusat Perlindungan Ehsan) in reducing impact of these children on the State’s socio-economy. The second phase is to upgrade facilities at the Temporary Detention Centre in compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC1995). Presently the State Government had commissioned studies on the street children sponsored by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development in collaboration with University Malaysia Sabah which would give a clearer picture on the problem with the aim to draw up a long term plan that is more holistic and integrated to address the issue.