Vietnam's overseas workers get raw deal
HO CHI MINH CITY - The Vietnamese government's effort to fight unemployment at home by encouraging its people to work in neighboring countries seems to be backfiring amid reports of workers being jailed overseas and caned after being declared undocumented laborers.
Early last month, a Vietnam Airlines plane landed in Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport, bringing home 41 Vietnamese who had been jailed, caned and later expelled by immigration authorities in Malaysia for overstaying their tourist visas and working illegally in that country.
Ironically, these 41 were among the first group of 1,000 workers encouraged by the Department for the Administration of Foreign- Employed Labor Force to join so-called "job tours" to Malaysia organized by local Vietnamese agencies.
But department officials were on the defensive when asked to comment on this venture gone sour. "We do not have a full account of the number of Vietnamese citizens cheated by individuals or organizations seeking overseas jobs using tourist visas," said Vu Duc Toan, the department's chief inspector.
The department's director, Tran Van Hang, went further in explaining why labor exports are necessary, despite the risks. "Some 7.5 million to 8 million Vietnamese of working age are in need of jobs in this country of 79 million people," he said. "Vietnam's unemployment rate has been a big headache for top state officials, so the more workers we can send abroad the more relief we will hopefully see."
One of the expelled workers, Nguyen Huu Huan from Khoai Chau commune in Hung Yen province, said he went to Malaysia based on promises made by a labor-supply company that he would be as a well-paid construction worker. These promises, he said, were made after his father paid them US$2,000. "In reality, they sent us to Malaysia as tourists," said Huan.
Huan's father, Nguyen Huu Thu - a 68-year-old farmer - said he paid the money to a man, who pretended to be a representative of a labor-supply company, and two village officials. "I invested a lot in sending my son to Malaysia hoping it would help us put together some savings and change my family's life," he lamented.
Huan's nightmare began on arrival in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. The company "representative" took Huan's identification card and passport locked him up in a room full of migrant workers like him. "I was only allowed out when the 'representative' found odd jobs for us," he said.
But the "representative" bolted three months later when Huan's tourist visa expired, leaving him stranded with the other workers.
Huan managed to get by for another five months, doing odd jobs, before he was arrested by Immigration Department officers and thrown in jail after being caned.
An Van Thanh and his brother Van Nha, too, faced the same predicament as Huan. Like Huan, they were also deported by Malaysian authorities. "After five months of doing odd jobs and earning just enough to pay for our room and food, we were arrested by police, sent to jail and caned," said Thanh.
The Malaysian Immigration Act was amended last year so that anyone found guilty of being in the country without the appropriate legal documentation would face a mandatory jail sentence of up to five years' imprisonment and up to six strokes of the cane.
According to Amnesty International, by the end of 2002, hundreds of undocumented workers had been sentenced to caning.
In the past few years, Malaysia has become a growing market for Vietnamese labor, which is also being sent to other Asian countries. To date, more than 30,000 Vietnamese workers have been sent to Malaysia by labor-supply companies. Half are employed in the manufacturing sector, with the remainder evenly divided in the electronics, textiles and garments, and construction sectors.
According to official statistics, the number of Vietnamese workers seeking employment overseas had climbed from 20,000 in 1999 to 50,000 in 2002. To date, 27 of Vietnam's 159 labor companies are licensed to export workers to Malaysia.
Unlike its Southeast Asian neighbors the Philippines and Indonesia, Vietnam is a relative latecomer to the idea of exporting its workers overseas to rake in badly needed foreign exchange.
But the government plans to send about 500,000 Vietnamese workers overseas by 2005, which it says will earn the economy some $2 billion in annual remittances.
This, however, has prompted swindlers and con artists to prey on poorly educated rural folk in the remote provinces with promises of overseas jobs in exchange for huge sums of money for their services.
According to sources, the so-called "job tour" companies charge a flat fee of $2,000 per person and an additional $150 for a health certificate and visa to Malaysia. No other tests or documentation, the sources said, were required by the companies.
This was in sharp contrast with Malaysian immigration requirements that overseas workers should also be able to communicate in English or Malay, and possess an official certificate attesting that they did not belong to any terrorist organization.
"Many labor companies have supplied vague information to job applicants so as to cheat them," admitted director Tran Van Hang of the Department for the Administration of Foreign-Employed Labor Force.
"People in remote and mountainous areas remain unaware of these chances [overseas] and must rely on middlemen when they want to apply for overseas jobs," he said. "Swindlers therefore come to these rural areas, pretend to be 'representatives' of a certain job- supply firm to recruit workers for jobs overseas."
Meanwhile the families of 76 workers from Hai Duong, Ha Tay and Thai Binh provinces have written an open letter to the department for the foreign-employed labor force, urging it to intervene with Malaysian authorities to bring their children back to Vietnam.
"When loudspeakers announced the news [of workers to Malaysia], we immediately applied [for our children]. But after three months, we heard that our children were leading miserable lives there and that some workers were arrested by authorities in Malaysia," said the letter.
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam - Asia Times/Inter Press Service - July 02, 2003.
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