MIGRATION, HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION.

1
MIGRATION, HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN ERA OF
GLOBALIZATION.

• By
• Irene Fernandez

2
GLOBAL MIGRATION.

• 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.

3
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?

4
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.

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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

• 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 (150), or
  Germany and Poland (110) are well documented.

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MIGRATION POLITICS

• 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.

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MIGRATION POLITICS

• 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.

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FORCED MIGRATION

• Inequalities have widened and sharpened in our
  world.
• 3 Fs significant impact on communities
• - CRISES OF FOOD, FUEL AND FINANCE.
• Compounded with CLIMATE CHANGE.

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MALAYSIA RICH AND BOOMING

• NEEDS 5 MILLION FOREIGN WORKERS by2010.

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BIG BUSINESS

• Migration is a Big Business
• which is highly Organized,
• Structured a System to make money.

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SECURITY not LABOR

• 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).

14
STIGMA

• Multilayered process of Devaluation
• Discrimination

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Contract Violated but What Can We Do?
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OUTSOURCING OF LABOR OR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
DERULATION PROCESS?
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Bonded Labour - DWs

• 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
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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.

19
APPROVAL AND FEES CHARGED IN MALAYSIA PER
WORKERS- RM 3500 - RM 6000
20
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

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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.

• More than 60,000 Burmese refugees in Malaysia.
• The dictatorship and attack on ethnic burmese
  increases daily.
• Situation getting worse after saffron revolution.

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Malaysias 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.

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RELA- The New Enforcers
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THE CRACKDOWN
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CLIMATE OF FEAR

• . 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.

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criminalization

• Cycle of Violence, Abuse and Torture

criminalization
Securitization surveillance
Risk of arrest, Detention harassment
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WHIPPED
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RIGHT TO STAY

• Access
• Denied

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Length of time taken
31
Case of Mohd. Zaki
?
undocumented
waiting
4 yrs later
Refused Visa- No Sponsor
2002
Re-filed
2000
High Ct Squashed Judgment Referred to IRC
11/99
Won case/ employer appealed
1999
Referred to Ct
4-1998
IRD negotiation
Dismissed From work
32
Case of Md. Hossain
10-2003
8-2003
Deported
High Ct. revision but whipping done
6-2003
27-5-03
Charged Sentenced 5 mths 1 whipping
12-2002
Arrested in Shah Alam
Visa Refused
30-9-01
5-7-01
Referred to Ind. Ct
17-6-01
Filed Case - IRD
2000
Dismissed No Salary paid
Worker Cahaya Timber Industries
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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.

34
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.

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WTO-GATS MODE 4

• 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

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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