International Migration and Governance in Malaysia: Policy and Performance

Abstract

Malaysia has been, and continues to be, a major destination country for migrants. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, migrant labour was a central plank of British colonial policy and was consistent with the country's role as a supplier of commodities of empire to the industrialised West. Since the 1970s and 1980s the leading sector in economic growth has been a range of exportoriented manufacturing industries, also associated with labour-intensive production. The resurfacing of labour shortages, improved transportation and communication networks and a resurgence of migration has brought new challenges to the Malaysian state. The current causes of migration are also different– people are no longer migrating for economic reasons only. Political, ethnic and religious unrest in the region is also resulting in migration across borders. Malaysia has thus had to establish policies in areas such as labour migration, refugees and human trafficking, and is at another crossroad of re-articulating its migration frameworks to better manage migration. The state's current regulatory structures and border control systems are also evolving and its periodic amnesties, detention and deportation programs and responses to the refugee crises are being played out against the background of the human rights of all migrants.