COVID-19 policy response and the vulnerabilities of low-skilled women migrant workers in Malaysia

Abstract

The government of Malaysia is, alas, not doing its level best to include migrant workers, let alone low-skilled women migrant workers (WMW) in its 2020-2021 COVID-19 policy response. First and foremost, it is imperative to look at the national COVID-19 relief response. In Malaysia, it is called PRIHATIN Economic Stimulus Package which was executed very swiftly as it was announced 9 days after the implementation of a national lockdown in March 2020. Alas, the response disregarded migrant workers entirely. The PRIHATIN infographic document, provided by the government via the Ministry of Finance, does not even mention the word ‘migrant’. The tagline of the stimulus package ironically says “no one is left behind” when migrant workers are conspicuously being abandoned. Ten days after the PRIHATIN package was announced, the government came up with an additional Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) stimulus package after receiving feedback from citizens. This is a commendable effort on the part of the government. However, it once again omits low-skilled WMW. While the additional package did touch on migrant workers once, where the levy on foreign workers is reduced by 25 per cent, that relief bypasses low-skilled WMW as it is non-applicable to the domestic work sector. Second, the Malaysian government is considering the introduction of short-term work permits for undocumented migrants. However, they have been mulling over this decision since October 2020 and there has been no further news yet. This decision would also not benefit low-skilled WMW, especially domestic care workers, as it will only include the palm oil and rubber industries. Thirdly, SPIKPA, the health insurance scheme for Malaysia’s foreign workers, which was implemented in 2011, deserves to be analysed because it plays a role in exacerbating the vulnerabilities of low-skilled WMW during COVID-19. Firstly, there is inadequate awareness of SPIKPA among migrant workers. Many of them do not know whether they have been enrolled or what are they entitled to. Secondly, employers of plantation and domestic workers are not mandated to enrol their workers unlike in other sectors (where it is mandatory for the scheme to be financed by either the employers or the employees). The insurance is optional with employers in plantations and in the domestic sector allowed, but not obligated, to pay for their employees. This leaves domestic workers at the compassion of their proprietors for healthcare, thus making them extremely vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.