Teresa Kok: Why not let refugees work to help solve labour shortage crisis?

Zarrah Morden
·2-min read
Malay Mail
Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Seputeh MP Teresa Kok today suggested that refugees with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards should be given the opportunity to work.

Considering that several sectors are facing a labour crisis, refugees should be given temporary work permits, she told Parliament during her debate speech on the Budget 2023 this afternoon.

“What can they do? They can’t go to school and after that, they can’t work.

“They have no choice other than to quietly work wherever they can illegally. They’re open to exploitation,” she said.

Kok said there had to be a formula to deal with the issue of the labour shortage and refugees in a humanitarian way.

There are currently 181,000 refugees seeking sanctuary in Malaysia according to the UNHCR website, she said.

She added that around 85 per cent of them are from Myanmar while the rest are from other Muslim countries.

The Rohingya refugees have also been in Malaysia for two or three generations now as well, she pointed out.

“We can’t send them back, right? They’ve been here for two or three generations now.

“And they are not allowed to work. How do they survive in our country?” she asked.

She added that 45,650 refugees were children below the age of 18.

Kok said foreign labour was needed in the manufacturing, farming and domestic help sectors.

The issue of allowing refugees to work had previously been raised by the UNHCR and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), she commented.

Last year, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) Prof Datuk Rahmat Mohamad reportedly suggested that Putrajaya implements a proper legal framework for handling refugees.

He reportedly said that proper documentation of the refugees and stateless people in the country would be the first step for them to access education, healthcare and hold legal jobs to contribute to the economy.

The core problem stems from Malaysia not ratifying the United Nations Refugee Convention, he reportedly explained.

According to the UNHCR website: "The UNHCR card is only an identity document. It does not provide refugees with a formal right to work in Malaysia. Under Malaysian law, refugees are not legally recognized, usually not granted work legally."

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