Malaysia does not want the truth
Nepalese migrant discovered snatched passports and knew he must flee
Job in Malaysian factory meant low pay, long hours and squalor for new arrival who suspected others had escaped before him
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More than 1,000 Nepalese migrants have died while working in Malaysia since mid-2006. Photograph: AFP/Getty
When Phadendra Kumar Shrestha heard about the cupboardful of abandoned passports, he knew he was in trouble. The 27-year-old migrant worker from Sindhuli district, Nepal, had travelled to Malaysia on the promise of a salary more than double what he could ever hope to earn at home, but the contents of the cupboard made him afraid.
Shortly after his arrival in Kuala Lumpur in October, his employer confiscated his passport and those of the 36 young men who had travelled with him. Without his documents, the only way Shrestha could leave his employer was to run away. And so the pile of abandoned passports indicated that several workers had fled, leaving their documents behind.
It had all felt so very different when Shrestha boarded the plane in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. "I felt bad leaving my family, but I thought that if I worked hard for two or three years it would be good for my future. I might not get another chance," he said. But, in truth, he was in trouble before he had even left home. Shrestha had paid a recruitment agent 120,000 rupees (£750) to secure the job in Malaysia – 40,000 rupees more than the limit set by the government.
Shrestha challenged the agent about the high costs, but he knew he had no option but to pay them. "I tried to do lots of jobs in Nepal – no one has worked as hard as me – but the most I could earn was 15,000 rupees a month (£95)," he said. The only way he could afford the fees was to take out a loan for almost the entire amount with an annual interest rate of 36%. Despite such costs, Malaysia remains the most popular destination for Nepalese migrant workers.
Bed Kumar Khatiwoda, who was a migrant rights co-ordinator for the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions in Malaysia for eight years, says the country is popular with migrants because it accepts workers with few skills and qualifications. "When it comes to migration, the government rules are not too strict, so even uneducated men from the villages can get a job there," Khatiwoda said.
It is also the most risky. According to government data, 1,023 Nepalese died in Malaysia between mid-2006 and April 2014 – more than in any other Nepalese destination country. More than 10% of these deaths were classified as suicide. Eighty-three Nepalese died in Malaysia between 1 January and 13 April this year – an average of almost one a day.
"It's more dangerous than the Gulf countries," Khatiwoda said. "Even if workers have insurance, the companies rarely pay compensation when there is an accident. And the government offers no help. There is no one to stand up for migrants."
According to the 2014 trafficking in persons (TiP) report published by the US state department last week, a high proportion of Malaysia's estimated 2 million illegal migrant labourers fall prey to forced labour at the hands of their employers, recruitment companies or organised crime syndicates, who refuse payment, withhold their documents or force them into indentured servitude. Malaysia's relegation to the lowest tier of the TiP watchlist, which grades governments' anti-trafficking efforts on a three-tier scale, indicates that the country has failed to comply with the most basic international requirements to prevent trafficking and protect victims within its borders.
Shrestha said he immediately understood why workers' passports had been withheld. Upon arrival in Malaysia, he had been collected from the airport and driven through the smart outskirts of Kuala Lumpur's capital to Pandamaran, an industrial district near the coast.
He and the other new arrivals were put up in a derelict shack, with plywood walls, a tin roof and no fan to ease the humid air. "The cowsheds in my village were better than those rooms," Shrestha said. "The place was so dirty. It was like a storeroom, with scraps of metal lying all over the place."
Every day they were driven for an hour and a half to work then forced to do a gruelling 12-hour shift in a plastic packaging factory. "We were not even allowed to take a five-minute break to go to the toilet," he said. "We had to wait for hours until we got permission."
Worse was to follow. At the end of the first month, Shrestha received a little over half the salary he had been promised by the recruitment agent in Nepal. "I felt terrible. I had been promised one thing in Nepal, but it never materialised in Malaysia. I didn't contact the Malaysian authorities because we had been told that the police were very corrupt. We might have to bribe them, so we didn't approach them," he said. "But if I could, I would tell them to make sure we get the pay and conditions promised to us in Nepal."
Instead, Shrestha called his recruitment agent in Nepal who came to Malaysia to negotiate with his employer. "He came and talked to the company director who assured him he would pay our full salaries, but as soon as our agent left, he backtracked and told us to follow the rules and accept the salary we were given."
Shrestha eventually escaped with the help of his brother, who used his influence as a journalist to demand Shrestha's return. But some of the other workers have not been so fortunate. "There were three men working in our factory who had been there for five years," Shrestha said. "They don't have their passports or an air ticket, so they are trapped. How can they ever leave?"
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