Transcript Slide 1

MIGRATION, HUMAN
TRAFFICKING IN ERA
OF GLOBALIZATION.
By
Irene Fernandez
GLOBAL MIGRATION.
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More than 250 million people working as migrant
workers world-wide.
In Asia alone more than 80 million are on the
move .
Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Philippines, more than
70% of the total number that go as overseas
contract workers are women
In 2007, the Remittances sent by migrants
globally was 338 billion dollars which is the third
largest foreign exchange value.
NEO LIBERAL
GLOBALIZATION
WTO AGREEMENTS AND POLICIES for
TOTAL TRADE LIBERALIZATION.
GATS MODE 4 – TEMPORARYMOBILITY OF
LABOR IN SERVICES AND DEREGULATED
LABOR-NO PERMANENT MIGRATION.
WTO HAS COLLAPSED. THE STRATEGY NO
LONGER WORKS.
WHAT OTHER WAYS?
SUSTAIN NEO LIBERAL
GLOBALIZATION?
The rich countries, transnational
corporations and the elite of source
countries have gained.
Failed economies in countries that followed
the neo liberal policies
Wide inequalities, increase of poverty and
hunger etc.
Cheap, temporary, contractual, unorganized,
unrecognized and vulnerable form of labor
that increase capital.
GREAT OPPORTUNITY
Send your people – LABOR
EXPORT.
 Temporary & cheap – DEREGULATE
LABOR.
 Let the poor survive with the work
overseas.
 Let families depend on MWs
 REMITTANCES! YES
REMITTANCES
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DEPENDENCY SYNDROME
Families DEPEND on Migrant. The family
numbers increase.
 The community depends on the migrants
 The nation depends on the migrants to sustain
the failing economy.
 Develops strong labor export policy
 Searches for new markets.
 Creates new ways to extract money from the
worker
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MIGRATION POLITICS
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Migration politics aims to keep the system
of borders and territories whilst in the
same time exploits the wage and
reproduction cost differential between
countries. The political economy of the
wage ratio between Singapore and
Indonesia (1: 289), Mexico and the US
(1:50), or Germany and Poland (1:10) are
well documented.
MIGRATION POLITICS
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Many members of the more prosperous economies are
beginning to agree to the concept that there is a world of
two 'camps', separated and unequal, in which the rich
will have to fight and the poor will have to die if mass
migration is not to overwhelm us" This is how the
conservative French thinker Rapail has been
appreciated by US-American policy advisors. It prepares
the ground for a 'militarisation of migration control', and
also signals the willingness of the international
community to sacrifice life for the sake of defending the
status quo of social injustice, inequality and exclusion.
MIGRATION POLITICS
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Migration has many facets such as containing
the movement of the poor to the centres of
wealth, or in opposite the recruitment of migrant
labour to accumulation centres. It can be the
expulsion of 'surplus people' from their soil or the
blocking of escape moves from war or ecological
disaster. Migration has been analysed as a
potential of being a precondition to economic
growth as well as a threat to capitalism and
accumulation; therefore recruitment and
containment are closely related.
FORCED MIGRATION
Inequalities have widened and sharpened
in our world.
 3 F’s significant impact on communities:
 - CRISES OF FOOD, FUEL AND
FINANCE.
 Compounded with CLIMATE CHANGE.
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MALAYSIA – RICH AND BOOMING
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NEEDS 5 MILLION
FOREIGN WORKERS
by2010.
BIG BUSINESS
Migration is a Big Business
which is highly Organized,
Structured & a System to make money.
SECURITY not LABOR
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There is a fundamental problem that runs like a
thread through the government migrant policy. It
focuses on treating migration as a matter of
“security” rather than being handled as a labor
concern by the Human Resources Ministry.
Government continues to view migrants as a
national security threat and accordingly provide
the leading governing role to the Ministry of
Home Affairs (MHA).
STIGMA
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Multilayered
process of
Devaluation
Discrimination
Contract Violated but What
Can We Do?
OUTSOURCING OF LABOR
OR TRAFFICKING IN
PERSONS
DERULATION PROCESS?
Bonded Labour - DWs
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State/s have
institutionalised
bonded labour
Passports
withheld
Restriction of
movement
Unpaid wages
No off days
Recruiting
Agents
Double jobs
Have elements of
Trafficking in
Modern Day
Slavery
Outsourcing of Labor.
In this form of outsourcing, the company
provides an industry, often referred to as the
Principal, with workers to do the job or tasks.
The outsourcing company is left with the
responsibility of recruitment, of management
of the workers including wages, living
quarters, transport to work and meeting all
legal requirements, as in the case of migrant
workers.
APPROVAL AND FEES CHARGED IN MALAYSIA PER WORKERSRM 3500 - RM 6000
Fees
Amount
Marketing fees for the agent
RM 200 – RM500
Verifies contract, quota of workers and
eligibility by KDN and approval
RM 1500 – RM2000
Levy (see table 4)
RM 360 – RM1800
calling Visa
RM 300 – RM500
Lobbyist fees for Human resource
manager/local agent/outsourcing
company
RM 1000 – RM1200
Bank Guarantee
RM 30 – RM30
Attestation and other fees:
RM 50 – RM55
Total
RM 3440 – RM6085
UN Protocol To Prevent, Suppress And Punish
Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women And
Children
Definition
(a) “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other
forms of coercion, of abduct-ion, of fraud, of deception,
of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability
or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
achieve the consent of a person having control over
another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the
exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms
of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services,
slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the
removal of organs;
Modern Day Slavery
Forced Prostitution
 Bonded Labour
 Smuggling and
Trafficked for babies
 Foreign Brides
 Selling of Organs
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LIFE THREATENING, FORCED LABOR
AND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS.
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More than 60,000
Burmese refugees in
Malaysia.
The dictatorship and
attack on ethnic
burmese increases
daily.
Situation getting
worse after saffron
revolution.
Malaysia’s Arrogance of Power
 Malaysia
refuses to sign the UN
Convention 51 on REFUGEES.
 The only reason given so far is that
the whole population of Burma will
wade into Malaysian territory. – Fear
or Self centeredness?
 Malaysia then recognizes all refugees
as “illegal” migrants.
RELA- The New Enforcers
THE CRACKDOWN
CLIMATE OF FEAR
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. By creating a climate of fear through
arrest and detention among migrant
workers, MHA has made the country less
secure by undermining the kinds of policy
initiatives need to effectively manage
migration for mutual benefit with respect of
rights for migrants, for employers and the
nation as a whole.
criminalization
 Cycle
of Violence, Abuse and Torture
criminalization
Securitization &
surveillance
Risk of arrest,
Detention &
harassment
WHIPPED
RIGHT TO STAY
Access
Denied
Length of time taken
4- 5 Yrs
2.70%
5- 6 Yrs
1.35%
1 Yr or less
33.80%
3- 4 Yrs
27.01%
2- 3 Yrs
6.75%
1- 2 Yrs
28.38%
Case of Mohd. Zaki
?
waiting
4 yrs later
2002
2000
11/99
1999
4-1998
Dismissed
From work
Referred
to Ct
IRD
negotiation
Won case/
employer
appealed
High Ct
Squashed
Judgment
Referred
to IRC
Re-filed
Refused
VisaNo Sponsor
undocumented
Case of Md. Hossain
10-2003
8-2003
6-2003
27-5-03
12-2002
30-9-01
5-7-01
17-6-01
2000
Worker
Cahaya
Timber
Industries
Dismissed
No Salary
paid
Filed
Case
- IRD
Referred
to Ind. Ct
Visa
Refused
Arrested
in
Shah Alam
Charged
Sentenced
5 mths +
1 whipping
High Ct.
revision but
whipping
done
Deported
RIGHT TO STAY DENIED
The Immigration Policy gives a special
pass renewable only up to 3 months.
 Beyond 3 months, the MW is required
to return to his country.
 When the case resumes, he is expected
to return at his own cost to seek
redress.
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THE EMPLOYMENT ACT
Though the Act gives Right to redress,
yet it becomes toothless for migrant
workers.
 Migrant worker remains in a state of
paralysis when he tries to assert his
rights
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SUPER EXPLOITATION
Employers are able to violate rights with
impunity.
 The exploitation is consciously
institutionalized by the Home Ministry
 The Human Resources is toothless.
 The Judiciary is insensitive and passes
judgement from guidance of the
Prosecutors.
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IMPACT
Slavery
Workers are a commodity to
be bought, used and thrown
away.
 NO RIGHTS
 NO VOICE. NO STRENGTH AS
WORKERS.
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MALAYSIA AS DESTINATION
COUNTRY
PRACTICES MODERN DAY SLAVERY.
NOT SURPRISING WE ARE IN TIER 3 OF
THE US REPORT ON TRAFFICKING IN
PERSONS.
CORRUPTION IS ENTRENCHED AND
EMBEDDED TO A POINT IT IS
ENDORSED AT ALL LEVELS.
WTO-GATS MODE 4
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Through this sanctioned trade in human
beings as labor commodities, today the
global elite has created a global bonded
contract system of labor which is intensely
exploitative with punitive controls by
employers and the state. The worker has
no or limited access to justice and
representation
Do We Respond?
Any form of
response must be
based on
fundamental human
rights like right to
move and right to
stay. The principle
has to be on an
open migration
policy with
recognition of
refugees