IOM Calls for Greater Efforts to Combat Health Inequalities for Migrants

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Posted on Friday, 25-09-2009

Portugal - IOM is calling for more concerted efforts in the fight against health inequalities faced by migrants at a two-day European-wide consultation that concludes 25 September in Lisbon.

With migrants more vulnerable to poor health and with reduced access to health care in comparison to host populations in Europe despite investments made by governments in their health and social systems, national and European institutions alike will need to pay more specific attention to migrants' health requirements.

Not leaving migrants to fall between the cracks and ensuring they have equitable access to health and social services is important for overall public health safety. As a result, IOM advocates for a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach to avoid social exclusion and improve the health of all people including migrants.

The consultation - "Better Health for All" - which marks the second anniversary of a European conference on the same issue held under the Portuguese EU Presidency in 2007, has been organized by IOM and is hosted by the Office of the Portuguese High Commissioner for Health. It brings together more than 100 representatives from key organizations working on health issues in Europe, relevant ministries from EU and EU accession countries and neighbouring states with keynote speakers from the European Commission (EC), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the Council of Europe and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The EU-Level Consultation is the culmination of an IOM-managed and EC co-funded project "Assisting Migrants and Communities" during which the Portuguese High Commissariat for Health and IOM have fostered cooperation and dialogue among multi-disciplinary actors. Beyond the Portuguese government, IOM has partnered in this initiative with leading European universities as well as the Spanish, Italian and Maltese governments to develop background papers on priority issues in migrant health as the basis for the consultation discussions.

Opened by IOM's Deputy Director-General, Laura Thompson, the consultation is expected to develop recommendations for translation into national and EU-level migration health policy and practice, as well as to identify areas where more data and research would be needed.

For further information on the EU-Level Consultation on Migration Health - "Better Health for All", please visit www.migrant-health-europe.org or contact:

Roumyana Benedict
E-mail: rpetrovabenedict@iom.int

or

Maria-Jose Peiro
IOM Brussels
E-mail: mpeiro@iom.int

UAE deports 1,500 HIV sufferers

The UAE deported more than 1,500 people with HIV, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis in 2008, a new report said on Thursday and criticised many countries around the world for failure to protect sick migrants.

Those criticised included the United States, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and South Africa and the report urged governments to commit to the goal of universal access to HIV treatment for all who need it by 2010.

"With 192 million people - or 3 percent of the world's population - living outside their place of birth, ensuring migrants' and deportees' access to HIV treatment is absolutely essential to meeting this goal,” said Titise Kode, who works for African HIV Policy Network, which formed part of the multi-agency group that authored the study.

Saudi Arabia, which has mandatory HIV testing, also came under fire with the report claiming people were detained "for up to a year without access to medication" and HIV-positive migrants were deported.

The report offered no comparative figures for those deported because of HIV or other diseases around the globe or on a year-on-year basis.

"Migrants living with HIV are often explicitly excluded from treatment," said Katherine Todrys, researcher with the Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. "If they are detained, they are often denied access to antiretroviral drugs, and then if deported they can’t get care."

The report said national deportation procedures were often insufficient to protect those with HIV from being forced to return to countries where there was a risk of being tortured or subjected to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment".

This happens despite long established international human rights and refugee law prohibiting such deportations, the report added.

The report also criticised the United States for poor access to treatment it offered to people in detention centres, as well as the "harsh conditions" and "lack of access to medical treatment for some HIV-positive individuals who are deported".

The multi-agency report was prepared by Human Rights Watch, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, the European AIDS Treatment Group and the African HIV Policy Network.

The group called on governments to ensure access to treatment for those awaiting deportation. It also urged the re-examination of deporting those with HIV to countries where treatment and social support structures were inadequate.

"Migrants face enormous risks when they cross borders," said David Hans-Ulrich Haerry, of the European AIDS Treatment Group.

"But they shouldn't face a death sentence for living with HIV when we have effective treatment available and governments worldwide have pledged to provide universal access to antiretroviral medicine and have committed themselves to international treaties that guarantee migrants protection."

Source: http://business.maktoob.com/20090000376082/UAE_deports_1_500_HIV_sufferers/Article.htm

Human Rights Groups Call for Protection of HIV-Positive Migrants

By Selah Hennessy (London) 24 September 2009

Human-rights groups have released a new report calling for governments to rethink deportation rules for people living with HIV and AIDS. In some countries migrants who suffer from HIV are automatically deported and in many countries across the globe no treatment is given to HIV-positive people in detention centers. A Human Rights Watch spokeswoman said the present policies amount to a death sentence for many migrants living with the virus.

Human-rights groups say governments and donors must make sure HIV-positive migrants have access to life-saving anti-retroviral therapy when detained and, if deported, that they have continued access to treatment.

Rebecca Schleifer from Human Rights Watch, a London-based group that worked on the report, spoke to VOA by phone. She says the treatment of HIV-positive migrants is a question of international law. "International law provides that states have the right to control their borders and decide who to admit or deport. But they need to make these decisions in compliance with international law, including international human-rights law and international refugee law, for example," she said.

She says many people suffering from HIV are being deported to countries where good HIV care is not ensured and this is, in effect, a death sentence. "In some cases people face deportation to countries where they face a possibility of inhumane treatment and in some cases torture should they be deported to that country. In some cases that is because the medical care is so inadequate that they will face death and there is no social support and in some cases there is also discrimination against people living with HIV," she said.

What is more, she says, there is no infrastructure to ensure that migrants suffering from HIV will receive continuous care. When treatment is not continuous, patients can easily build up an immunity to the drugs.

But Schleifer says the news is not all bad. She says some new cross-border migrant programs are emerging that focus on the need for continuous HIV treatment. "There have been hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees coming into South Africa over the past several years, many of whom have among other things serious health problems and some of whom have HIV. There have been discussions regionally among NGOs -and I am not sure how far this has gotten with particularly governments - about the importance of having a regional structure to address continuity of care for people who cross borders," she said.

The 27-page report was prepared by Human Rights Watch, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, the European AIDS Treatment Group, and the African HIV Policy network.

Researchers in Thailand say they have found a new vaccine which cuts the risk of HIV infection by a third. The breakthrough marks the first step towards protecting the world against the deadly virus.

Governments have committed themselves to the goal of universal access to HIV treatment by 2010.

SOURCE: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-09-24-voa52.cfm

2nd clinical trial for China's HIV/AIDS vaccine

BEIJING, Sept. 27 -- China has conducted its second phase of clinical trials of a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. This is the first time experts are assessing the safety and efficiency of the vaccine in high-risk groups.

More than 230 volunteers took part in this second phase in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Scientists are expected to decide, based on results, whether to go ahead with a third phase of trials.

If a third phase is carried out, it will evaluate the vaccine's effectiveness on a large number of people.

China started research on a vaccine for the AIDS virus in 1996.

(Source: CCTV.com)

Coming out positive: Three Filipinos Living with HIV Making a Difference in ICAAP9

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

By Ana Santos, Contributor (Sunday, September 13, 2009)
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/sept/13/yehey/weekend/20090913week1.html

On the surface, Edna, a housewife; Jerico, a former OFW; and Jocelyn, a former waitress in Angeles City, may not seem like they have anything in common.

However different they may seem, there is one distinct point where their lives intertwine-Edna, Jerico and Jocelyn are all living with HIV.

At the recently concluded International AIDS Conference (ICAAP9) in Bali, Indonesia, the 2nd largest AIDS Conference in the world, these three Filipinos came out to share their stories of living with HIV.

Together, the three gave not only a face to the epidemic, but a voice to the everyday realities of living with it.

Edna, housewife and mother Edna, is a 38-year-old housewife.

When she met her husband, Romy, he was a seafarer whose journeys to other lands fascinated her. They married after a few years of dating and Romy continued his job as a seafarer, deployed to various parts of the world for long periods at a time.

Edna says that, at first, it was difficult to have Romy away so much, but after they started having children, it became easier to bear. She busied herself with taking care of the children and being both mother and father to them while Romy was at sea.

While they weren't rich, Edna says that they lived a pretty decent life on Romy's salary.

But in 2004, this all changed.

In that year, Romy met an accident while he was onboard the ship. When he was trying to fix a hydraulic jack, one of the pipes came loose and hit him. Romy was left with a huge wound in his upper abdomen. He was declared unfit to work and sent home when his ship docked in Amsterdam.

Back in the Philippines, Romy was operated on and his blood was tested.

A few weeks later, an epidemiologist told him his blood tested positive for HIV.

The implication of such news was a lot for Edna to bear. Romy thinks that he may have gotten infected during an encounter in Brazil where he had unprotected sex.

But the infidelity soon became the easier burden to bear.

Romy could no longer return to work so Edna had to assume the role of sole breadwinner of the family. In 2007, Edna also tested positive for HIV.

At first, I didn't want to be tested. Romy is the only man I've ever had contact with so I figured that if he was positive, I was positive, too.

According to a UNAIDS study entitled, HIV Transmission in Intimate Partner Relationships in Asia, there are an estimated 1.7 million women in Asia who are living with HIV. The study estimates that 90 percent of these women were infected by their longtime boyfriends or husbands.

However, being a seafarer may have also increased Romy's vulnerability to the virus.

A recent study showed that seafarers are three times more susceptible to the HIV, as compared to the general population.

Being far away from home compounded by the loneliness of being at sea makes seafarers seek offshore recreation through unprotected sexual encounters. Some may maintain a casual relationship with a commercial sex worker in different ports who may in turn be having simultaneous relationships with other male clients. The incidence of multiple concurrent partnerships adds to the seafarers vulnerability to HIV.

Edna's testimony at a forum held by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) was the preface for the launching of a new IOM program whose specific objective is to reduce HIV incidence in the maritime sector.

The program called, Global Partnership on HIV and Mobile Workers in the Maritime Sector is the first global multisectoral partnership that involves employers of seafarers, trade union organizations and international labor groups.

The Philippines, which deploys around 350,000 seafarers and supplies 20 percent of all seafarers globally, has been chosen to be the pilot country for this program.

Other members of this global partnership include: International Committee on Seafarers Welfare, International Labour Organization, International Maritime Health Association, International Shipping Federation and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Jerico, former OFW

Jerico was just about to live out his dream of working in a foreign country and celebrate his 30th birthday when he found out that he was HIV positive.

It was 2005 and Jerico had just moved to Dubai. He had gotten a job working in a food establishment and a HIV test was a prerequisite for an employment visa.

Even though I had a number of casual unprotected encounters with other men, I wasn't nervous about taking the test. I didn't think HIV was something that would happen to me. When they told me that I was positive, I thought it was the end of the world, recalls Jerico.

Being in a foreign country made matters worse for Jerico. Not only was he away from family and friends, he also had to contend with the HIV policy on migrant workers in a foreign country.

I was put in a quarantine area isolated from the rest of the hospital and then I was deported, he says.

While his dream of working abroad may have come to an end, Jerico found another way to make a difference. As an Area Coordinator of Pinoy Plus, a support group of people living with HIV/AIDS, he conducts pre-departure orientation seminars to OFWs.

Jerico is also a staunch advocate of policies that will protect the rights of migrant workers who are HIV positive. Drawing from his own experience, he has been invited to international conferences to give his personal testimony. Before ICAAP9, Jerico was in Switzerland speaking at a World Health Organization (WHO) forum about his experience.

Sharing my story has helped a lot in my healing. I used to think that I was dying and that there was no hope. I hope that I can be seen as proof that there is life after a positive diagnosis.

At ICAAP9, the Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM Asia), a regional Malaysia-based NGO that investigates migration and health issues, called for the removal of mandatory HIV testing for migrant workers as a condition for entry, stay, or employment in their destination country.

According to CARAM's Asian Report on Mandatory Testing, standard practices such as securing explicit consent, provision of pre-test and post-test counseling, protection of confidentiality are often ignored due to various factors related to large-scale testing of migrants. Furthermore, CARAM called for a stop to the deportation of migrant workers who are HIV+ or have other treatable health conditions.

Jocelyn, former commercial sex worker

Jocelyn had just moved to Angeles City and was only 15 when a friend asked her is she wanted a job as a waitress.

I was very excited because I hadn't finished primary school and there was this opportunity to earn money and help my mother, she recalls.

Jocelyn paid a friend P100 for the use of her birth certificate that to show that she was 18 years old and started working as a waitress serving drinks to American servicemen.

After about a year, a friend introduced Jocelyn to a medicine that she insisted would make her feel good and forget all her problems. Jocelyn took it, not realizing that it was ecstasy.

Before taking ecstasy, Jocelyn says that she never went out with the customers. But once I started taking this medicine, I did not feel shy. I had no fear and felt that I was a strong woman who could take her of herself.

One month after taking ecstasy, Jocelyn lost her virginity.

She continued going out with customers after that. Jocelyn says that she started to earn a lot more money and for the first time in their life, she was eating three meals a day.

As part of the bars policy, Jocelyn underwent a smear test to check against STIs every week and an HIV anti-body test every six months.

In 1991, she got pregnant with her first son. She was only 17 years old. It was also the year when Mount Pinatubo erupted and all the American Air Force men moved out of Angeles City-including the father of Jocelyn's child.

Jocelyn decided to stop working to look after her son, but the difficulty of making ends meet as a single parent made her decide to go back to the bar in January 1994.

In March of that same year, she took an HIV anti body test even though she had had no partner for over a year. A couple of days later, she shared one night with a serviceman and became pregnant.

Jocelyn was told that she was HIV positive when she was pregnant with her second child.

I was terrified that my child would also be positive, but no one could give me any information. At the time, people had so many misconceptions about HIV. They wanted to burn people who had it, Jocelyn confesses.

Jocelyn says that she experienced discrimination and was treated as an outcast even by her own family when she told them that she had HIV. My brother wouldn't eat at the same table with me. He was afraid that he would get infected if he shared my glass or utensils.

She attributes the lack of understanding and information about HIV as the incendiary factor that nurses and provokes this discrimination.

My brother eventually made peace with me after he saw a woman living with HIV on TV.

In 2004, Jocelyn began working as a peer educator in a social hygiene clinic in Angeles City. Everyday she conducts seminars on STIs and HIV prevention for the new women from the provinces who come to Angeles City to work in the bars. The seminars are requirement for a work certificate.

On certain days, Jocelyn also provides counseling for women diagnosed with HIV.

Jocelyn is also part of Sister Plus, small group of HIV positive women in Angeles. Last year, they received funding and started a livelihood program. Every woman who is a member is entitled to receive P50,000; P20,000 for burial expenses that is really funny and P30,000 to start a small business, she explains.

Jocelyn used the money to put up a small sari-sari store in her house.

After much inner turmoil and guilt for possibly passing on the infection to her second son, in 2005, Jocelyn finally had him tested. She was relieved to find out that he was negative.

Now my life is some much better than before. It was a hard life, but I am happy because I feel like I have broken through a wall, says Jocelyn. I have no regrets.

Jocelyn's story, as told here, is featured in a book entitled Diamonds a compilation of 10 stories of women living with HIV in the Southeast Asia Region. The story of a 12-year-old girl from India is also included in the book.

Diamonds is published by the women's working groups of APN+ (Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS) in collaboration with UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women).

The book also has a DVD version with the same title.

A book launch and a DVD screening were done for the first time at ICAAP9.

During the launch, writer/editor Susan Paxton said, Ten years ago, very few people would come out and say that they were HIV+. Most of the time, the ones who would speak about it were men. Diamonds is monumental because now, we not only have live testimonials with faces, but testimonials from these very brave women living with HIV.

Latest Press Stories

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Invisible Refugee by Leonie Joubert's new book, Invaded: The Biological Invasion of South Africa, was launched last month
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-12-the-invisible-refugee

The term "refugee" isn't one governments want to talk about in the context of climate change: they may be asked to open their borders to people forced to flee because of rising sea levels or extreme weather.

Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change, sidestepped the issue during a climate change briefing with South African editors in Johannesburg, saying: "The best thing we can do is prevent climate refugees happening.

"I really think the prospect of a world with hundreds of millions of climate refugees is pretty bad,'' he said. "It's important that we take the action that is necessary to prevent that happening, for the sake of the refugees more than anything."

But Miliband didn't say the United Kingdom would accept climate refugees: "I think that the issue points to the urgency of acting on the overall situation."

Well, yes. The International Organisation for Migration predicts that about 200-million people may be looking for somewhere new to live as climate change amplifies existing causes of migration, such as environmental stress and conflict over resources, by 2050.

Greenpeace puts forward a much bigger number: by the middle of this century, one in nine people will be forced to migrate because of climate change.

A small state such as the Maldives, with its 300 000 people living across a series of islands barely above sea level, is already expecting inundation by a 1m rise in sea level projected by the end of this century.

Rising sea levels would also flood vulnerable deltas, including the Nile (home to 10-million people), the Mekong (with more than 14-million people) and the Ganges (where nine million people will likely be affected).

Environmental change is expected to trigger large-scale migration in the Sahel, which faces a future of water shortages and drought.
Downstream of the Himalayan glaciers, about 1,4-billion people in Asia face hunger as runoff disappears along with the glaciers.

As much of the pollution driving climate change has come from the developed world, such countries may well be asked to take responsibility for these climate refugees.

But will they? Later this month signatories of the Kyoto Protocol meet in Thailand in the penultimate effort to streamline the lengthy text that states may sign into life in Denmark in December.

The Copenhagen talks should replace the Kyoto agreement. But there's debate about whether the term "refugee" will be in the next-generation agreement at all. Some prefer the phrase "environmental migrant" -- migrants don't require as much legal protection as refugees, it seems.



Monday, September 14th, 2009, 6:12 am Amman Time | Make this your homepage | Subscribe
There are now 84 days to Copenhagen. An enormous diplomatic challenge lies before us if we are to secure the ambitious, effective and equitable agreement that we need to avert runaway climate change that would have disastrous consequences for Europe and the world.
Around the world, and particularly in the poorest and most vulnerable countries, global warming already threatens to undermine development efforts in health, agriculture and infrastructure. Migration caused by lack of access to water and land is increasing social tension and undermining political stability and security.
Climate change has the potential to bring about substantial geopolitical change. It will increasingly affect the foreign policy decisions of all our countries. European foreign ministries must make a real contribution now to the drive to achieve a deal at Copenhagen. The European Union must show renewed leadership to help unlock the negotiations through its commitment to take ambitious mitigation action at home, and on financial and technological support to help developing countries move to a low carbon growth path.
After the meeting in Copenhagen on September 10, we agree on how to tackle this collective diplomatic challenge. We pledge the following:
- To press for a deal at Copenhagen of sufficient ambition to keep global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees.
- To work to promote an ambitious and equitable international offer in which Europe will take its fair share in financing mitigation, technology and adaptation efforts by developing countries.
- To engage personally to direct the full force of our diplomatic efforts and mobilise the resources of our collective diplomatic networks to persuade the key participants in this negotiation to come forward with ambitious commitments.
- To work to ensure that the challenges climate change poses to international stability and security gets a prominent position on the international agenda.
- To work to ensure that the EU continues to show leadership in the negotiations with a readiness to move from our current commitment of reducing carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, to a commitment to reduce emissions by 30 per cent in the context of an ambitious deal and comparable efforts by the other partners.
Through a strong message on finance for mitigation, adaptation and technology we will contribute towards a deal that gets all countries onboard a new agreement to be reached in Copenhagen.
The Copenhagen conference cannot agree on a new international regime to fight climate change unless we find a political balance among all parties. We must create mutual confidence and trust that the only sustainable global growth path is for us to transform our economies to low carbon. We can make this the great defining cause for Europe in the 21st century.
David Miliband, secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, UK
Carl Bildt, minister for foreign affairs, Sweden
Per Stig Moller, minister for foreign Affairs, Denmark
Bernard Kouchner, minister of foreign and European affairs, France
Alexander Stubb, minister for foreign affairs, Finland
Miguel Ángel Moratinos, minister for foreign affairs, Spain

14 September 2009


The Jakarta Globe

Protecting climate change refugees
Sunday 13 September 2009 14.00 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/13/climate-change-refugees-law
Communities hardest hit by climate change are also the poorest. Their right to compensation and protection needs to be made law

The phrase "environmental refugee" has been around since the 1970s, with the term "climate refugee" appearing more recently. Although the concept is simple to grasp, these terms have no meaning in international law.
The need to mitigate the effects of climate change has rightly held a high place on the international agenda, but it is only now that the reality of human suffering on a colossal scale, as a consequence of a changing climate, is being given the attention it deserves. I believe environmental security is a human right and, as climate change creates millions of environmental refugees, that this right must henceforth be enshrined in international law.
As early as 1990, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) suggested that the "gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration." Similar predictions today suggest that 200 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 due to environmental factors arising from climate change.

Crucially, it is evident that environmental stresses affect communities and regions least able to adapt to change, typically hitting the poorest people on our planet. At the same time, many of the regions and populations that will be most affected, such as Bangladesh or small island developing states such as the Maldives and Seychelles, also have some of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, they have been responsible for a tiny fraction of the warming gases released, compared with those released by western industrialised nations. For many in the west, the effects of a changing climate remain largely an abstract concept, yet among poorer nations the climate is already devastating the lives of millions.
Meanwhile, there is a complete absence of any formal, enforceable, legal multilateral mechanism designed to address the needs of these people and assist in creating some greater equality and proportionality between those causing climate change and those most affected.

The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was drafted in the immediate aftermath of the second world war; its focus on those who are forced from their country of origin through fear of persecution, "for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion". In today's world, the 1951 convention cannot meet the needs of climate refugees, as its narrow legal definitions will not apply to most of those affected by climate change. Also, the specific desire and best option for many will be to stay within their national boundaries if the financial and technical assistance to do so were forthcoming.

Just as the overarching threat of climate change is one of global responsibility, so is the fate of climate refugees. In this context, there is a clear and compelling imperative to create a new multilateral legal mechanism – and with it a new legal definition for climate refugees – that enshrines the right to life, food, health, water, housing and other essentials. This should apply to all those who are now affected and the millions more who will be affected by the changes in our climate created largely by a distant, and still largely unresponsive, wealthy west.

Every year, climate change leaves more than 300,000 people dead, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses of $125bn. If anyone should be in any doubt as to the comparative costs of propping up failing economies, and of protecting millions of people from climate change, the UN has estimated that annual global spending to mitigate the worst effects of climate change amounts to about $0.5bn. Compare that with the $150bn spent by the US federal government to bail out just one failing insurance company, or the top nine US banks which gave over $32bn in bonuses alone that same year.

The recent financial crisis has shown that both political will and financial muscle can be mobilised when the wealth and way of life for the developed world is threatened. Now, in the knowledge that not just the way of life, but the actual existence of many is threatened by climate change, we must mount a similarly forceful response and create a new legal framework for climate refugees alongside the essential action to curb our carbon emissions.

Latest Migrant Developments In The Media

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Foreign Employees Limited, Malaysia Is Suffering Through a Labor Shortage
By LIZ GOOCH (August 31, 2009)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/economy/01labor.html

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It is lunchtime at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in suburban Kuala Lumpur, and regulars are coming in for local favorites like roti canai, chicken curry and teh tarik, the sweet, milky drink that is ubiquitous across Malaysia.

The owner, Muneandy Nalepan, has time to stop and talk for now, but when peak times hit on weekends, he and his wife must pitch in to help clear tables.

He used to have a staff of 120 — almost all foreigners — working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years.

Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners. But if he cannot get more workers soon, he says, he might close one of his outlets. Mr. Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures.

“To run a restaurant, it’s becoming impossible,” he said.

It is not just restaurant owners who are complaining. Many business owners, like furniture producers and rubber glove manufacturers, say a labor shortage is harming productivity.

In January, Malaysia sharply curtailed the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month, The New Straits Times reported.

“There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time,” Syed Hamid Albar, the home minister, told the paper.

The action was backed by labor groups. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October.

“Because of the global economic downturn, we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners,” said Rajasekaran Govindasamy, the group’s secretary general. “We don’t want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship.”

In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners — mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Myanmar and Vietnam — working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggested the country was home to an additional one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan, executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers.

“About 300,000 permits were not renewed, and people were sent back,” he said.

Malaysia recorded 31,392 layoffs from January through July, and the country’s unemployment rate rose to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

The average monthly wage in the manufacturing industry has risen to 650 to 700 ringgit ($183 to $197) in the last three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August.

Mr. Rajasekaran said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically, foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work.

Mr. Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult.

For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy — as much as 1,800 ringgit — for any new foreigners they employ, he said. The fee used to be paid by workers. Mr. Shamsuddin said the government abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained.

Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker, but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labor shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labor-intensive operations to China.

Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, said the country’s dependence on foreign labor was a result of a decision to “open the floodgates” to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing.

Mr. Ariff said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labor-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers.

“The technology transfer suffered enormously,” he said. “Malaysia was trapped into an unskilled, labor-intensive economy.”

Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr. Rajasekaran, the labor leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions thought the freeze on foreign workers should continue. If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country.



Asia Pacific Countries To Discuss Migrant Labour Issues

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=437025

PETALING JAYA, Aug 31 (Bernama) -- Organising migrant workers in Asia Pacific countries and forming a global network will be among the important issues to be discussed at an international workshop organised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) beginning here on Wednesday.

The workshop, to be attended by more than 30 trade union leaders from 17 Asia Pacific countries, will also study the possibility of establishing migrant labour centres in the region.

Countries participating in the two-day workshop, besides Malaysia, include Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea and Pakistan.

Local co-organiser Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), in a statement today, said the workshop would also facilitate the exchange of information and sharing of experience among participating countries on the issue.

Its vice president, A. Balasubramaniam, said the workshop was timely and significant as the impact of migrant workers both for the sending and receiving countries was substantial, socially and economically.

He said Malaysia would gain much from the workshop as it had a substantial migrant population of more than 1.9 million legal and another 1.2 million illegal workers from Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.

RI lacks ‘political will’ to help housemaids
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 08/27/2009 9:06 AM

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/08/27/ri-lacks-%E2%80%98political-will%E2%80%99-help-housemaids.html

Migrant Care, an NGO advocating for the rights of migrant workers, has urged the government to immediately ratify the 2003 ILO convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families to counter increasing abuse against housemaids both at home and abroad.

“The government should no longer have any reasons to delay ratifying this important convention.

They should remember the increasing number of fatalities in workplace, labor extortion both at home and overseas, widespread trafficking of women and children and the increase in HIV/AIDS among sex workers,” Migrant Care executive director, Anis Hidayah, told The Jakarta Post by telephone in Jakarta on Wednesday.

She said the government was reluctant to ratify the convention because it believed the measures would only protect domestic, not international, workers.

“But it is impossible for Indonesia to ask other countries to ratify the convention if it itself does not do it. If all UN member countries ratify the convention, all destination countries employing Indonesian migrant workers will be obliged to take measures to protect them. Likewise, Indonesia will also reciprocate and protect expatriates working here, including housemaids,” she said.

Anis said the number of workers who had either died or been abused at their work places in Malaysia and Middle East had spiked in the last three years, despite the signing of a bilateral labor agreement and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between the two countries.

The ILO convention, which took effect on July 1, 2003, has only been ratified by 35 countries. It stipulates that migrant workers have the right to form a union, be protected from arbitrary dismissal, move to another workplace and seek another job.

A joint working group from Indonesia and Malaysia is still reviewing the bilateral labor agreement but have agreed workers should be allowed one day off per week and be allowed to hold onto their own passport.

Migrant Care called on the joint working group to also allow migrant workers — mainly housemaids — to be allowed to leave their workplace on their day off and visit whoever they feel. They also demanded that workers be able to maintain contact with their relatives back home.

“If workers are not allowed to leave their place of employment on their day off,” Anis said, “then the review becomes quite redundant.”

Anis said it was regrettable the government had decided to not support a proposed convention on international standards for housemaids, which was scheduled to be endorsed at an international labor conference in Geneva in 2011.

“This is a strong indication that the government has no political will to protect workers in the domestic sector and holds no bargaining power to pressure other countries into provide protection for Indonesian migrant workers,” she said.

The government’s decision to support a non-binding recommendation on international standards for housemaids was discussed at a recent meeting between the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and other relevant ministries, including the Home Ministry, Health Ministry, National Development and Planning Board (Bappenas) and the Foreign Ministry.

The ILO office in Jakarta, in cooperation with civil society groups, drafted a bill which deals specifically with the protection of housemaids and gave it to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry. The Ministry, for unspecified reasons, has been reluctant to forward it to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.

The bill outlines minimum wages for housemaids, working hours, extra-hour payments, days off and annual vacation.

“This is a strong indication that the government has no political will to protect workers in the domestic sector and holds no bargaining power to pressure other countries into provide protection for Indonesian migrant workers,”