Detention centres: Is punishment the solution to the border-crossing issue?

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite being heavily reliant on foreign labour, Malaysia’s policies and treatment of migrant workers, particularly those who are undocumented, have often come under scrutiny.

North-South Initiative Executive Director Adrian Pereira noted that the country’s current system believes in punishing and detaining the migrant community to solve border-crossing issues, which is inaccurate.

“We need to have a paradigm shift and look for the actual root causes of why the migrant communities are ending up without documentation.

“One of the major reasons is human trafficking and forced labour, which causes them to lose their documentation or come in through an irregular channel,” he told Astro Awani.

He also urged the authorities to investigate how migrants end up stateless in the first place, as well as their motivations for crossing borders without documents.

Malaysian immigration authorities have been accused of causing the deaths of 149 Indonesian nationals who were subjected to allegedly brutal conditions in detention centres in Tawau, Sabah over the last 18 months. Between January and March this year, it is believed that there were 18 deaths.

This came following a report titled “Like in Hell: Conditions at Immigration Detention Centres in Sabah, Malaysia” by Indonesian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Koalisi Buruh Migran Berdaulat.

It is based on interviews with 100 out of 2,191 detainees that were repatriated back to Indonesia last year. Of the total, 57 of them were children under the age of five.

The report noted a gross lack of concern for the wellbeing of detainees and overcrowding, where up to 260 people were allegedly squeezed into windowless cells the size of a badminton court, equipped with only three toilet bowls.

"Unpleasant smells filled several blocks while the toilets were extremely dirty," it said. "There were no beds provided. Each detainee slept on the hard floor with only cardboards as beds."

In one case, a detainee with Down syndrome died from lack of health support despite complaining of illness for an extended period. Officers allegedly made light of the man’s condition and only treated him with Paracetamol.

According to Pereira, the Penal Code does not currently require for a migrant’s death in an immigration detention centre to be investigated through an inquest. Thus, any officers involved in causing that death have impunity.

When asked about the deaths in Sabah’s detention centres, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said “anyone could die anywhere”.

“If I knew someone was going to die and not place them in detention, then I would be great. The same goes for our officers,” Hamzah told reporters. “If we detain them, it means they have committed a crime. When someone has committed a crime, we are forced to follow the existing laws.”

To better care and manage migrants in the country, Pereira called for authorities to stop looking at migration from the perspective of security.

“There are some legitimate concerns but over-securitising this sector has resulted in more precarious conditions for migrants,” he said.

“We need to remove that security lens and start treating migrants with dignity, making procedures easier for them to access jobs and to come in for safety, such as for refugees. With that, we’ll be able to manage the flow much better.”

He added that migrants should not be blamed for being without documentation as this was often the fault of employers, agents and human traffickers.

“Malaysian statistics show that a very small number of agents and employers are charged for this, so it’s a very lawless situation which is unjust and does not look good for the country’s image.”