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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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 (1:50), or Germany and Poland (1:10) are well documented.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. FORCED MIGRATION • Inequalities have widened and sharpened in our world. • 3 F’s significant impact on communities: • - CRISES OF FOOD, FUEL AND FINANCE. • Compounded with CLIMATE CHANGE.

11. MALAYSIA – RICH AND BOOMING • NEEDS 5 MILLION FOREIGN WORKERS by2010.

12. BIG BUSINESS Migration is a Big Business which is highly Organized, Structured& a Systemto make money.

13. 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

15. Contract Violated but What Can We Do?

16. OUTSOURCING OF LABOR OR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS DERULATION PROCESS?

17. Bonded Labour - DWs • State/s have institutionalised bonded labour • Passports withheld • Restriction of movement • Unpaid wages • No off days • Recruiting Agents • Double jobs Haveelements of Trafficking in Modern Day Slavery

18. 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;

21. Modern Day Slavery • Forced Prostitution • Bonded Labour • Smuggling and Trafficked for babies • Foreign Brides • Selling of Organs

22. 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.

23. Malaysia’s 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.

24. RELA- The New Enforcers

25. THE CRACKDOWN

26. 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.

27. criminalization • Cycle of Violence, Abuse and Torture criminalization Securitization & surveillance Risk of arrest, Detention & harassment

28. WHIPPED

29. Access Denied RIGHT TO STAY

30. 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

33. 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

35. 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.

36. IMPACT Slavery • Workers are a commodity to be bought, used and thrown away. • NO RIGHTS • NO VOICE. NO STRENGTH AS WORKERS.

37. 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.

38. 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

39. 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 Do We Respond?