The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has urged the Federal Government to curb conditions akin to modern-day slavery in the local electronics sector by expediting and broadening new legislation that would regulate private employment agencies.
A statement by ILO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) said the organisation was concerned about a recent survey by international labour rights group Verite on the Malaysian electronics industry.
The Verite survey found that one third of Malaysia’s 350,000 electronic industry workers – many of whom are migrants – suffered from modern slavery conditions, such as debt bondage.
The Malaysian Insider‘s Lee Shi-An reports that the ILO was ready to help Putrajaya adress the electronics industry’s labour issues, and that it had previously supported Malaysian government labour inspectors in addressing human trafficking for labour exploitation.
“ILO has already provided feedback to Putrajaya, workers’ and employers’ organisations, on a draft bill to tighten the regulation of private employment agencies.
“ILO also strongly recommends that the draft bill be extended to cover outsourcing agencies,” ILO said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported on the Verite findings and detailed the harrowing conditions migrant factory workers had to live and work under in Malaysia.
The report follows worker strikes in Johor, where foreign factory employees staged protests and later riots against local electronics parts supplier JCY HDD in Johor.
49 workers were arrested after riots at the JCY HDD plant in Kulaijaya which resulted in the burning of a factory building.
See Also:
1,000 foreign factory workers went on strike in JB over death of colleague
Striking factory workers burn car in Johor
Foreign worker strike: Kulaijaya factory burned down
Foreign worker srtike: more arrested over Kulaijaya factory fire
Survey points to modern slavery in Malaysian electronics factories
