THE tragic death of 21-year old Indonesian domestic helper, Adelina, infuriated our nation.

We received a tip-off from neighbours on Saturday (February 10) about a domestic helper being abused and visited the employers’ home to investigate the very same day.

After failing to secure cooperation from the employers and fearing for the safety of Adelina, one of my staff lodged a police report.

The police, acting quickly, managed to remand two of the employers and sent Adelina to the hospital. The next day, however, Adelina passed away there.

It was a senseless loss of life.

Yet, we all know very clearly that Adelina’s was not the first case.

Just last February, another Indonesian maid, Jubaedah, 38, died after being allegedly abused by her employer. In 2015, a couple was sentenced to death by the Court of Appeal for the murder of their Cambodian helper, 24-year old Mey Sichan. The case was later commuted to manslaughter and the couple sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Mey was starved to death.

Lack of protection makes migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation

These tragic cases are the extremes, but they demonstrated the total lack of protection for migrant workers in our country. While deaths are perhaps rare, migrant workers, including domestic workers, are constantly facing all sorts of abuses.

In 2015, the Nepali government reported that there were 461 deaths of Nepali workers in Malaysia. This makes a horrifying average of nine deaths weekly; more Nepali workers die than there are days in a week!

An International Labour Organisation (ILO) report showed that the Nepali deaths were due to “poor working conditions, high level of occupational stress and lack of adequate medical care.”

The 2017 US Department of State Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report warned that, in Malaysia, “migrants workers on palm oil and agricultural plantations, at construction sites, in the electronic industry, and in homes as domestic workers are subjected to practices that can indicate forced labour, such as passport retention, contract violations, restricted movement, wage fraud, and imposition of significant debts by recruitment agents and employers.”

Exploitation of migrant workers corrupts our society

True to the pattern reported in the TIP Report, when we found Adelina, we were told that her passport was confiscated. The act of retaining another person’s passport itself is already illegal.

Clearly in Adelina’s case, she was totally deprived of basic human rights. Not only her whole body was battered, she was not given adequate medical treatment until it was too late, another gross violation of the law.

We need better laws and protection for migrant workers in this country. There are about 2 million legal migrant workers and possibly another 2-4 million illegal migrant workers already here.

The exploitation of migrant workers is both a human right issue as well as a socio-economic problem.

Firstly, one can only imagine the social upheaval if 2-6 million people are being bullied and oppressed on a regular basis. In 2014, about 1000 migrant workers rioted in a factory in Johor because of resentment over bullying by their employer

Secondly, when migrant workers can easily be exploited, the local job market will be affected as well. If employers can easily hire migrant workers with no-to-low labour protection, thus saving them various costs, migrant workers will always be the preferred choice when it comes to hiring. This scenario creates a situation of competition to the bottom in our local job market, with Malaysians having to either lower our own demands or risk unemployment especially for those at the bottom of the employment ladder. Ultimately, this competition to the bottom will affect everyone.

Finally, and most importantly, human rights must be protected for everyone. One of the last things Adelina said was, she still has her parents in Indonesia and she is here to earn money to help her family. We must realise that migrant workers are fellow human beings with the same dignity and the same rights as us. Even if we are not altruistic and do not care for foreigners, allowing gross human rights violations to go uncheck will eventually corrupt the system of protection not only for migrants but also for Malaysians. If someone can be subjected to workplace bullying, violence and even be tortured to death here in Malaysia, what makes us think that the next person will not be a Malaysian?

Exploitation of migrant workers is a time bomb we need to diffuse immediately.

May Adelina rest in peace, and may justice be served. But more importantly, may this be the last tragedy due to workers exploitation in our country. – February 12, 2018.

* Steven Sim is Bukit Mertajam MP and deputy spokesman of the DAP Parliamentary Committee for Human Resources.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.