COVID-19: Lawmaker calls on government to greatly help Indonesian workers in Malaysia
28 March, 2020
As Malaysia plans to extend its lockdown until mid-April, a lawmaker has urged the Indonesian government to supply aid for most informal-sector employees in the neighboring country, whose livelihoods are severely damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Quite a few migrant staff in Malaysia are construction industry workers, factory employees, waitresses or janitors. They are paid daily or weekly," Golkar Party lawmaker Christina Aryani said in a statement on Friday.
She explained that 10 days after Malaysia went into lockdown, she had received reports that employees in Malaysia were starting to struggle to meet their basic needs.
"They want staple food aid immediately," she said. "We've urged the federal government to send them staple food via the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur."
Besides staple food, Christina explained that the migrant workers also desperately needed face masks.
"I hope the federal government can make certain that both urgent needs [are met] for our migrant workers," she said.
On March 18, Malaysia enforced a national lockdown within stepped-up measures to support the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The lockdown was primarily set to expire on March 31. However, on Wednesday, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced that the lockdown would be extended to April 14.
The director of the Indonesian Citizen Resolution Center in Malaysia (P3WNI), Dato M Zainul Arifin, said a lot of the migrant staff were afraid they could starve.
"Indonesian migrant employees in Malaysia aren't afraid of COVID-19, they are afraid that they might be starving given that they can't work," he said on Friday as quoted by kompas.com.
Zainul explained the challenge was exacerbated by the actual fact that many of them had gone to Malaysia illegally.
"Most of them were illegal immigrants, and some don't have the necessary permits for their jobs. For instance, they have a permit to just work at a plantation but work at a restaurant instead. Which means they don't really have employers or bosses who can legally manage them [during the lockdown]," he said.
As of Friday afternoon, Malaysia has recorded 2,161 COVID-19 cases, the best in Southeast Asia.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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