CNI News
1 January 2022
The public has been urged to file reports about illegal oversea employment agencies which are running operations in their wards and buildings to respective township offices of the Department of Labour, the Nrue News Information Team of the SAC told the CNI.
As illegal overseas employment agencies are operating in residential quarters, buildings and apartments are overcrowded and the issues have caused security concerns among the people living near them.
The official made the remarks when the CNI asked the department how to file reports about illegal overseas employment agencies and how it would take action against them.
The True News Information Team of the SAC responded, "The Ministry of Labour can investigate the cases together with other relevant authorities when they have received information about them. The public can file reports about them at relevant township labour offices."
An apartment in Yangon and detained illegal migrant workers in Thailand.
Illegal overseas employment agencies operate in residential quarters without any licenses and allow migrant workers to stay in their apartments before sending them to Thailand from Yangon by car. As a result, residential quarters are overcrowded with strangers and the issues have caused security concerns among the people, said a person who lives in an apartment building in Ward-13 in South Okkalapa Township. He said an overseas employment agency was operating in one of the apartments in his building.
He said, "An overseas employment agency is operating in the building I live in. It doesn't have a company signboard. We don't know whether it is an official or illegal agency because it is not transparent. The agency allows migrant workers to stay in the apartment and send them to Thailand and Malaysia. Some of them stay there almost a week. We don't know who they are. Crimes are rampant in Yangon. As they go outside and come back very frequently, we have to leave the main entrance door unlocked. Unscrupulous people can break into apartments when owners go to work. Who is responsible for such incidents, the landlord or the agency? If they are sending workers abroad illegally, they are trafficking in humans. Authorities should take action against them. People from the building should file reports about them to authorities. I am filing reports about them."
Myanmar workers sent to Thailand under the MOU between the two countries.
As a large number of people in Myanmar are trying to work abroad, overseas employment agencies and agents are mushrooming elsewhere.
As some agencies do not have company signboards, it is difficult for the public to know whether they are official agencies or illegal businesses.
People in Myanmar are working abroad through official agencies or illegal agencies and most of them go to Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and Dubai.
As of last March, there are 324 overseas employment agencies that are registered with relevant authorities.
Action can be taken against illegal agents under the Anti- Trafficking in Person Law, Advocate U Aung Kyaw told the CNI.
"Trafficking in Persons" means recruitment, transportation, transfer, sa!e, purchase, lending, hiring, harbouring or receipt of persons after committing any of the following acts for the purpose of exploitation of a person with or without his consent such as ' threat, use of force or other form of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position taking advantage of the vulnerability of a person, giving or receiving of money or benefit to obtain the consent of the person having control over another person.
