Many OFW’s in Malaysian Detention Centers Suffer from Inhumane Conditions
There were illegal Filipino workers expelled from Malaysia’s Sabah state has been severely beaten by police officers. Most of them were women and children have remained in Malaysian detention centers suffering from inhumane conditions, according to Luzviminda Ilagan, a Gabriela party-list representative and of the Fact-Finding Committee on Sabah Deportees. She told the reporters in the southern port of Zamboanga that “Filipino detainees and those who were already deported to the Philippines have experienced severe beatings from Malaysian police while under detention”.
Ilagan also urged the government to provide the deportees with aid to ensure they would not return as illegals to Sabah. She pushed for a House-level inquiry into the alleged abuses by Malaysian police. Malaysia announced a fresh crackdown on illegal early this year and thousands of Filipinos have been deported since. Th committee, composed of the Association for the Rights of Children in Southeast Asia, Migrante International, and Gabriela Women’s Party, was formed to investigate alleged Human rights abuses against undocumented Filipino workers and immigrants in Sabah.
The state which lies between the Philippines to the north and Indonesia’s Kalimantan to the south, is a magnet for immigrants who work on construction sites and oil palm plantations. The Malaysian authorities said there were 130,000 illegal migrants in Sabah but local politicians put the figure as high as 500,000. According to the Philippine government, an estimated 200,000 Filipinos are living and working in Malaysia without valid visas and nearly 3,000 are in jail waiting to be deported.
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