June 22, 2026
Bangladesh's Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said on Monday he had asked his Malaysian counterpart to consider reopening the labour market to Bangladeshi migrant workers, as the leaders expressed concerns over long-standing issues of foreign worker exploitation.
Malaysia has been a key destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers, whose remittances are a crucial source of foreign exchange for the South Asian nation.
However, Kuala Lumpur has restricted the hiring of workers from Bangladesh since 2024 amid reports of debt bondage and forced labour, with workers incurring substantial debts to secure employment in Malaysia.
Hundreds of workers were left stranded in 2023, after arriving in Malaysia only to find that jobs promised to them by recruitment agents did not exist, leaving them forced to seek work illegally and exposing them to detention and deportation risks.
