According to Malaysian government led by central government of Peninsular Malaysia announced 6P amnesty program under which undocumented migrant workers in the country could be registered and legalized or return to their home countries. The first step is to register Ended 31st August 2011. At present, it is processing the second step which is set to be ended on 10 January 2011.
In this regard, regional government of Saeawak announced that Sarawak will implement 6P amnesty Program to legalize migrant workers in Sarawak on 30 October 2011 so called “5P” comprising of pendaftaran’ (registration), ‘pengampunan’ (amnesty), ‘pemantauan’ (monitoring), ‘penguatkuasaan’ (enforcement) and ‘pengusiran’ (deportation), which is similar to the Peninsular Malaysia’s programme, except for the Pemutihan (legalization). Therefore, foreign government in Sarawak can only register to return to their home countries but are not allowed to reside in Malaysia so that they can not apply to work legally.
For registration, workers can register at all 11 immigrant offices in Sarawak or the employer can also invite officers from Immigration Office to proceed at the workplace but they cannot make register through the office of agent like Peninsular Malaysia.
The 5P amnesty program has been proceeded at the first step on November 2011 and will be ended on 31 November 2011( one month). In this regard, Office of Labour Affairs in Malaysia has coordinated leader of labour volunteers in Sarawak to publicize this news to Thai workers. In addition, on 16-18 November 2011, Minister Counsellor (labour affairs) went to Sarawak to help Thai crews who were a victim of human trafficking and those workers have already registered 5P amnesty program to return to home country. There are presently 11 Thai workers registered and all of them went back to Thailand already.
However, on 13 December 2011, Office of Labour Affairs in Malaysia was informed by Immigratin Office of Sarawak that regional government would postpone the regsitration according to 5P amnesty program for 1 month which would be ended on 31 December 2011 since there have been merely 12,611 workers registered ( the data recorded until 30 November 2011) deviding into 11,761 Indonesian workers, 400 Bangladesh workers , 348 Philippine workers, 41 Chinese workers, 23 Thai workers, 17 Pakistan workers, 7 Indian workers, 4 Cambodian workers, 3 Myanmar workers, 2 Vietnam workers, 2 Sri Lanka workers, 1 Taiwanese workers, 1 Singaporean workers and 1 Nigiran workers (Sarawak Immigration Office anticipated that there would be 100,000 migrant workers live in Sarawak.)
Regional government believes that the 2 months-registration period would be enough for migrant workers to register. After the completion of registration process, the enforcement would be implemented immediately. If any migrant worekrs and employers who employ undocumented migrant workers do not take their employees to register will be strongly penalized
Office of Labour Affairs in Malaysia therefore would like to publicize the program to Thai workers. Any of them who work illegally or reside in Sarawak illegally please register as the date set in order to return to home country without any penalty. In case that they intend to work in Sarawak, they have to return to home country and apply work permit legally again.
Any enquiry, please ask for more informatin at Office of Labour Affairs in Malaysia Tel: 03-21455868/21456004
