Cheated workers forced to buy fake passports

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The Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia allegedly has been exhibiting unwillingness to stand by its compatriot migrant workers there, while a well organised racket of Bangladeshi passport forgers comprising nationals of both countries is raking in a large sum of money by selling fake passports to workers desperate to return home.

Migrant Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, who were cheated and abused, are being forced to buy the fake passports because the high commission allegedly is not helping them in obtaining the travel documents required to return home, according to sources observing manpower trade between the two countries.

Involvement of some official of a few airlines and of Malaysian immigration at Kuala Lumpur Airport in the racket is also suspected, as they recently allowed a group of workers to travel with fake passports, the sources added.

The hapless workers are being put in the predicament by their Malaysian employers or employment agents who confiscate their passports on arrival there, but finally either leave them unemployed or employed in jobs with remunerations less than what they had been promised, or abuse them in many ways at work, forcing them to leave the jobs, the sources said.

The nightmarish details of the ill fate of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia, the gruesome greed of the passport forgers, and the stone cold alleged indifference of the Bangladesh High Commission towards its compatriots came to light after 45 Bangladeshis, who had returned home from that country on April 25 using fake passports, told the immigration police here that they had to pay 3,000 to 4,000 Malaysian Ringit equivalent to Tk 60,000 to Tk 80,000 to get each of the light blue forged passports, while the colour of a real Bangladeshi passport is deep green.

Zia International Airport police on Saturday filed a case against the fake passport holding returnee Bangladeshis, their recruiting agencies, manpower exporters, and cabin crew and management of GMG Airlines that flew the workers back to Dhaka.

“The names were also fakes on the forged passports, which compelled us to mention two names of each person in the case — one mentioned on the passport and the original name,” an immigration police official told The Daily Star on Sunday.

He said police previously found cases when travellers forged passports by replacing pictures, but this is the first case of full passport forgery, when entirely fake passports have been printed. “We are not yet sure whether the passports were printed in Bangladesh or Malaysia.”

There is no proof of any previous journey by the passport holders on the fake passports, which suggests the passports were probably printed in Malaysia, as the returnee workers came directly from there, the immigration police official said.

Quoting the returnees, he said once the workers arrived in Malaysia, their employers confiscated their passports. And as they were later either not provided with jobs with pays and perks promised earlier or cheated otherwise, the workers were forced to escape from the workplaces.

Finding no other suitable job, the cheated and ill treated workers were forced to buy fake passports to return home, he added.

Asked why the names of the victims were included in the case, the immigration police said they do have sympathies for the abused workers, but had no alternative because according to the immigration and passport acts the workers had broken the law by carrying fake passports.

On whether the police will try to stretch its probe to Kuala Lumpur, he said they already took the matter to the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment. A high level inquiry should be carried out on the matter, the immigration police official said.

A Bangladeshi expert working in Malaysia, for an NGO working with migrant workers there, told The Daily Star that there are thousands of cases when workers are hired by Malaysian companies often through employment agents, but finally the workers do not get the jobs promised or are horrendously exploited at workplaces.

Many instances are there where workers are inhumanely forced to work very long hours in exchange for measly wages and inadequate food, often prompting the workers to protest and leave the jobs. A several hundred workers recently returned from Malaysia due to such circumstances there.

Although, Bangladesh High Commission there opened ’safe shelters’ so the abused and cheated workers may stay there until their job related troubles are settled, according to media reports the ’shelters’ are so crammed that many ill fated workers had to stay on riverbanks under the open sky in Kuala Lumpur.

“There is a nexus of recruiting agencies, their agents in Malaysia, and some officials of Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, who not only discourage the troubled workers from returning home, but also sometimes compel them to join whatever job is available or just to continue to remain in the foreign land without any sign of hope.,” said a cheated worker who had returned home from Malaysia in January.

The syndicate’s new enthusiasm in continuing to keep the ill fated workers in Malaysia by any means necessary, was prompted by a movement in Bangladesh against the ill practices there, which had been launched by a number of recently returned workers who are now realising compensations from their recruiting agencies, the returned worker said.

He also said cases against the returnee workers holding fake passports should be dropped, instead the manpower exporters, recruiting agencies, and the employers who cheated them should be tried first.

When contacted, Bangladesh High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur M Khairuzzaman said it is not true that the high commission discourages workers from returning home.

“We are rather trying to rehabilitate workers with employment troubles. We blacklisted a few recruiting agencies for failure to maintain promises they made to workers,” he said.

If the passports were fake, the immigration at Kuala Lumpur should have held the passport holders, Khairuzzaman said.

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