Immigration Laws: January, 2002 - Number #15

The Malaysian government in December 2001 said that it had 450,000 unauthorized foreigners, and that 10,000 a month would be returned in 2002. Malaysia has another 550,000 legal migrant workers, and a 3.6 percent unemployment rate.

Malaysia fines and jails unauthorized foreigners. In order to leave Malaysia without paying fines, some Indonesians are buying forged Malaysian documents so they can leave Malaysia for the Muslim holiday of Hari Raya. In December 2001, 1,600 Indonesian illegal immigrants who rioted and set fire to a detention center in Malaysia were deported immediately.

Thailand. Immigration police reported that, of the nine million foreign tourists admitted in 2000, some 1.7 million, particularly Chinese and Indians, had not left.

Thai residents of Ratchaburi in December 2001demanded the closure of a nearby camp for 585 former student activists who were at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising in Myanmar.

Burma. Mei Sai, a Myanmar township along Thailand's northernmost border, was discussed at the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in December 2001 in Japan. Although there are no reliable statistics, estimates place the number of children in the sex industry worldwide at one million. The UN Children's Fund estimates that a third of the sex workers in southeast Asia are 12 to 17 years old.

Hundreds of young girls from Mae Sai are sold into prostitution and sent to Bangkok. In one village in Mae Sai, Pa Tek, abut 70 percent of the 800 families have sold at least one daughter. The brothel agents, known as Aunties, purchase young girls for between $110 and $900, equivalent to six years' wages for many families.

The International Labor Organization and U.N. Development Program released a report in December that found that most of the girls were leaving their villages through informal networks, with the approval of their parents, not after being tricked by criminal syndicates. The report concluded that most trafficking is done by small-time agents, some of whom live in the villages, and the network is more like a cottage industry than a sophisticated crime ring.

Singapore. Bangladeshi workers earn about $110 a month and save money by cooking their own food and sleeping in containers at the construction sites where they work. There are about 500,000 low-paid foreign workers in Singapore, plus 140,000 foreign maids. There are an additional 300,000 foreign professionals in the country to supplement the local labor force of 1.5 million people.

Philippines. The government reports 7.4 million Filipinos abroad, including naturalized US citizens, but says that about half are migrant workers who remit $6 billion a year-70 percent of remittances are from the US. Some 900,000 Filipinos left for jobs in 2001, up from 840,000 in 2000. About 27 percent of Filipino migrants work as domestic helpers, mostly in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia.

The Wall Street Journal on December 18, 2001 profiled a Filipina who worked as a maid in Washington DC, and hired a maid in the Philippines to care for her two children there in a so-called "mothering chain." The Filipina earns $750 a month, and remits $400 a month, including $50 a month to pay a local nanny to look after her children. The struggles of migrant mothers are fast becoming part of the mainstream Filipino culture; a major movie in 2000 was "Anak," or "Daughter," the story of a mother who returned from working as a maid in Hong Kong and found her family torn apart by her absence.

To explain why Filipinos emigrate, Philippine Labor Secretary, Patricia Sto Tomas said migrants "make a choice for more money but less prestige… Look at it this way. Part of the reason we're so in demand is because we have this unique characteristic where we send all our children to school. The net result is we have a lot of educated persons and this pool of educated persons is what makes us in demand all over the world."

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration said that it has been able to identify 1.5 million Filipinos who went abroad illegally, and that they may join a Voluntary Membership Program that offers free repatriation in cases where conflict or other catastrophe occurs in the country hosting them, insurance, medical assistance and a loan facility for $25.

Vietnam. In 2000, Vietnam had 450,000 Chinese, 153,000 Americans, 150,000 Japanese and 84,000 French visitors.