Malaysia’s major medical glove makers control more than two-thirds of the global market for a product that has been in emergency high demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But many of the Malaysian companies that export personal protective equipment (PPE) to hospitals across the developed world now face modern-day slavery allegations for their widespread labor abuses.
Some of Malaysia’s biggest rubber glove and palm oil exporters have recently had their goods blacklisted by the United States in response to third-party complaints of human trafficking, exploitation and forced labor of migrant workers in factories and plantations.
Malaysia is heavily reliant on migrant workers who toil in low-paid, labor-intensive jobs in the manufacturing, agriculture, construction and services sectors that are typically shunned by locals. Around 2 million foreigners work in the country of 33 million, with those employed in the glove industry hailing mainly from Bangladesh and Nepal.
Now, glove makers are making unprecedented debt bondage repayments to tens of thousands of their current and former workers in response to a string of US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) bans on their products that have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of losses.
Read the full story at Asia Times.
Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
