Policy Brief Issue No. 3: Establishing Migrant Welfare Funds in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar
A Migrant Welfare Fund (MWF) is a self-sustaining mechanism that enables the governments of countries of origin to provide additional welfare benefits and services to their migrant workers at the countries of destination, using a fund grown from the initial capital investments of foreign employers, recruitment agencies and/or migrant workers.
During the last few years, an increasing number of reports have documented serious labour rights abuses against migrant workers in Malaysia, including cases of forced labour and human trafficking. Responding to the concerns voiced by the international community and consumer groups, there have been a number of recent shifts in labour migration and anti-trafficking policies. In particular, several of the new measures announced in the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) may potentially improve the protections afforded to migrant workers in Malaysia, signalling progress towards a more coherent and rights-based governance framework. This policy review assesses the key recent changes made, and how they have been implemented in practice, in order to provide recommendations for further strengthening of labour migration governance in Malaysia.