Migrant Worker Policies after One Year of Anwar Ibrahim’s Government: An Indonesian Perspective

Anwar Ibrahim’s experience as an opposition leader and political prisoner led many to place high expectations on him when he was sworn in as prime minister on 24 November 2022. His campaign for the 15^th general election (GE15) often emphasised transparency and integrity, and promised to tackle deep-rooted corruption, inflation, racism and religious bigotry.

The public outside Malaysia also has high expectations of him. Time magazine wrote that Anwar is on a mission to save Malaysia’s democracy. In Indonesia, many hope he will improve policies to protect migrant workers. Despite not explicitly mentioning this issue during campaigns or political meetings, Anwar has discussed his vision for migrant workers in his pre-GE15 book, SCRIPT: For A Better Malaysia.

Relations between Malaysia and Indonesia are sometimes tense regarding the treatment of migrant workers. Compared to the Gulf States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Malaysia has the largest number of Indonesian migrant workers. According to the Indonesian newspaper Kompas, there were approximately 1.66 million  Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia in 2022 out of 2.7 million worldwide.

Now, after more than one year in office, it is worth examining whether Malaysia has made meaningful progress on its migrant worker policy.

During his first official visit to Indonesia on 9 January 2023, Anwar discussed the protection of migrant workers with President Jokowi. Since that first visit, Anwar has met with Indonesian leaders on several occasions and consistently expressed his commitment to resolving the problems faced by migrant workers in Malaysia, such as low wages, human trafficking, ill-treatment in prisons and immigration detention centres, and lack of legal protection.

The Anwar government intervened positively on migrant worker issues in three notable areas. First, it lifted the ban on migrant worker recruitment in three sectors and reintroduced the recalibration programme that essentially pardoned migrant workers who stayed in Malaysia without proper documentation and allowed them to obtain these documents without leaving the country. These decisions of mid-2023, implemented by the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), respectively, were quite successful in attracting many migrant workers to the service and manufacturing sectors and addressing the acute post-pandemic labour shortages.

Anwar has met with Indonesian leaders on several occasions and consistently expressed his commitment to resolving the problems faced by migrant workers in Malaysia, such as low wages, human trafficking, ill-treatment in prisons and immigration detention centres, and lack of legal protection.

Second, Malaysia strengthened a recruitment mechanism for domestic workers, called the One Channel System (OCS), and streamlined the responsible government agencies. The OCS was initiated by the administration of Anwar’s predecessor, Ismail Sabri, to replace the Maid Online System (SMO), and to resolve problems of illegal recruitment perpetuated by the SMO, as argued by many parties, including the Indonesian government. As of October 2023, approximately 5,000 domestic workers had been recruited through the OCS.

The third major policy decision is the establishment of alternative shelters for children of undocumented migrants and refugees held in immigration detention centres. Malaysia has faced criticism for detaining these children and placing them in adult cells with limited access to healthcare and no access to education, while also leaving them vulnerable to sexual abuse. In response, MOHA set up the first shelter facility for children in Negeri Sembilan in September 2022, and another in Sabah in December 2023. However, migrant worker advocates and human rights activists have argued that this merely relocates undocumented children from one place to another, while their treatment remains unchanged. Furthermore, these shelters are guarded by the People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA), an organisation often criticised for its vigilante tendencies and excessive force.

Overall, Malaysia has taken partial steps without addressing the underlying structural problems and geographic factors that undermine the country’s migrant worker system. Structurally, the problems with labour policy (e.g. recruitment and employment) are intertwined with immigration policy (e.g. visa and recalibration programme) and laws (e.g. access to lawyers, access to justice and remedies). Fixing immigration policy alone without improving labour policy and legislation will not bring meaningful change.

For instance, reintroducing the recalibration programme without addressing overly restrictive labour policies, such as the rule of eight hectares per migrant worker on palm oil plantations, perpetuates the presence of undocumented workers. The 8:1 ratio is unrealistic. Palm oil plantations in Malaysia are vast and require much manpower. In reality, palm oil companies circumvent the regulation and recruit substantial numbers of undocumented migrant workers because the permitted number of documented migrant workers is too low – and Malaysians are reluctant to work in the plantations.

The need for geographic policy considerations derives from the different characteristics of migration in the Peninsula and Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak) which require different responses. The discourse on the protection of migrant workers has primarily focused on the Peninsula, overlooking Sabah and Sarawak which share a porous border with Indonesia, spanning 1,900 kilometres. This corridor has a long history of irregular migration, involving kinship networks that cleverly evade authorities. Every day, migrants from Indonesia and the southern Philippines cross into Sabah in the hundreds, if not thousands, to find work.

Instead of attempting to make migration along these routes regular and safe, the Malaysian authorities have adopted a security approach to border management. Migrants are raided and arrested, and many face prolonged detention before deportation. Indeed, this approach clearly fails to prevent undocumented migrants from crossing the border, and only serves as a tool of labour control, making migrants docile, and denying them access to the justice and healthcare that Malaysian citizens enjoy.

On 26 November 2021, Malaysia and the ILO launched the National Action Plan on Forced Labour (NAPFL) 2021-2025 to tackle the issue of forced labour and encourage safe migration, partly in response to the U.S.’s ban on Malaysian imports that were linked to forced labour. To this day, the government has not clarified how or when it will execute the plan. Changes in domestic politics and shifting government priorities have hindered implementation, as well as overlapping responsibilities between agencies, with MOHR overseeing employer applications for migrant worker quotas but MOHA holding final decision-making powers. Indonesia’s ambassador to Malaysia has identified this administrative flaw as the root cause of the migrant worker system’s woes.

Despite Malaysia’s dynamic domestic politics, the Anwar government must lay the groundwork for a comprehensive policy protecting migrant workers. Malaysia needs to change its attitude towards migrant workers, who play a pivotal role in sustaining the country’s economy in good and bad times.

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