This follows the government’s move last month to lift a ban on sending its workers to Malaysia.
The country had imposed the ban in December 2016 following Malaysia’s criticism of the military crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya community.
The Myanmar Times today quoted an official from the migrant workers division of the labour, immigration and population ministry as saying that these agencies must be fully responsible for the workers they send.
“They must help workers to send their money in a legal way and charge not more than the prescribed rates for agency fees,” the official was quoted as saying.
The ministry had set 1,100,000 kyat (RM3,260) as the maximum agency fee for each worker sent to Malaysia.
It had also announced on Feb 7 that the agencies needed to submit to it the list of workers they wanted to send overseas, together with their visas, recommendations from the national labour attaché and details of the agencies involved.
According to Myanmar Times, there are about 250 overseas employment agencies in the country. About 150 were keen to send workers to Malaysia.
It also quoted U Win Htun, vice-chair of the Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Federation (MOEAF), as saying that employers and workers need to be informed that the ban had been lifted.
“Malaysia’s employment market (for Myanmar workers) will take about three months to recover,” he said.
He added that agencies had to accept lower fees from people wanting to work in Malaysia due to competition in the industry as Malaysia was a major market for Myanmar labourers.
According to Myanmar Times, about 3,000 to 4,000 workers used to go to Malaysia every month before the ban.
It cited statistics from migrant organisations that an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Myanmar nationals were working in Malaysia, mostly in food outlets and the manufacturing sector.
The Myanmar government’s warning to the agencies also comes on the heels of some high-profile reports on abuse of workers in Malaysia.
Yesterday, an Indonesian maid named Adelina, who had wounds on her hands and legs, died at the Bukit Mertajam Hospital.
On Jan 15, a couple in Penang convicted of starving to death Cambodian maid Mey Sichan were sentenced to 10 years in jail under Section 304(b) of the Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Incidentally, just the day before the ruling, the Cambodian government had announced the lifting of its own ban to disallow maids from the kingdom from working in Malaysia.
The moratorium was imposed in October 2011 following reports of widespread abuse experienced by its domestic workers in Malaysia.
Cambodian NGO ‘sickened’ over lighter sentence for maid killers