Malaysia should allow 50,000 refugees, many from neighbouring Indonesia and Myanmar, to work in the country legally in order to make up for a labour shortage, the UN refugee agency urged on Monday. Volker Turk, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Malaysia's recent expulsion of more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers had created a void.
"You have a refugee population here who cannot be deported," Turk told reporters at a meeting organised by the agency. "Why not use this population? Why not allow them to work legally?"
Malaysian Home (Interior) Minister Azmi Khalid could not be immediately reached for comment.
The UNHCR says 40,000 of Malaysia's refugees are registered with it, among them 20,000 from Indonesia's war-torn province of Aceh, and 10,000 members of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority. Malaysia is not yet a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which has been ratified by 145 nations. It views refugees as illegal immigrants.
Late last year Malaysia agreed to let the Rohingyas stay in the country temporarily, which meant they need no longer fear deportation, but Turk said the policy had yet to be implemented.
"We harbour hopes that this decision will be implemented by World Refugee Day on June 20. That would be the best gift for all the refugees here," he said.
Turk said Malaysia had detained about 900 refugees in its illegal labour crackdown in March.
The crackdown followed an immigration amnesty, during which more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers - mainly Indonesians - left in return for freedom from prosecution, but the exodus caused some acute shortages of unskilled labour.
Malaysia relies on foreign unskilled labour to do dirty, poorly paid work that locals shun, but the number of illegal immigrants, estimated at 800,000 or more ahead of the amnesty, causes the government a fiscal and administrative headache.
But their sudden departure hit a range of industries such as the construction and plantation sectors, leading to concerns among economists about the potential impact on economic growth and on inflation through higher wages.