KUALA LUMPUR: The governments of Malaysia and Bangladesh are hopeful that a new agreement between the two countries will help battle the growing human trafficking industry in Asia. Malaysia's Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein argued that the new agreement between the two countries would be to ensure exploitation does not happen. “The MoU will be signed soon after both countries create a mechanism at the operational level whereby political will between Malaysia and Bangladesh can be translated into an action plan involving the respective authorities,” he said. The MoU was hoped could also help combat other related crimes like money laundering, drugs and weapons smuggling, he told reporters after receiving a courtesy call from Bangladesh's Minister of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment of Bangladeshis, Khandker Mosharraf Hossain. Hussein said ties between the two countries would be cemented further as Bangladesh supplied the highest number of foreign workers to serve in various sectors in Malaysia including construction, agriculture and services. He also said Malaysia and Bangladesh had worked closely during Malaysia's 6P foreign worker amnesty program particularly during the registration and legalization exercises. “It a testimony of a strategic partnership between Malaysia as a labor recipient country and Bangladesh as a labor sending country,” he added. Hussein said under the 6P Program, Bangladesh nationals were the second largest foreign workforce registered, numbering 400,000. He said this kind of cooperation was pivotal to ensure orderly movement of people particularly foreign workers into Malaysia including from Bangladesh as well as ensuring that foreign workers in this country would not be exploited or taken advantage of by unscrupulous individual or agents. He added that the Bangladesh government also hoped that the sending of foreign workers from the country could be on a government-to-government basis to avoid involvement of middlemen.
