The abstract article, “Policies and Laws Regulating Migrant Workers in Malaysia: A Critical Appraisal”, authored by Evelyn Shyamala Devadason and Chan Wai Meng, depicts and discusses the broad topic relating to the legal acts that govern migrant incursion and their influence on the economy of Malaysia specifically. The article raises many issues including the absence revolving around the administration of laws, and practices of abuse by employees, businesses, and institutions within the labour force. The piece constitutes its own conclusions about what should be done to improve and make advancements to affairs with migrant workers by describing the failures of current laws and legislations and suggesting solutions. Similarly, Juanita Elias’
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In her piece, she makes specific reference to the female population of migrant domestic workers that are constantly being abused and discriminated against within the work and labour force. She discusses and exposes the “limitations of top-down labour rights approaches” and how “NGO’s have an important role to play in ‘translating’ human rights into meaningful strategy for pro-migrant worker political activism”. As the consideration of women comes into play in Elias’ article, the common theme of gender issues can be identified between all authors in their respective pieces and this acts as an important concept through which will be analysed. Elias discusses that the main issue with migrant women in the workforce are that they “are subject to harsh (and often abusive) workplace practices, social stigmatisation and systems of intense workplace control”. The discussion that Elias poses, while accurate, is simplistic in terms and it is inevitable that some degree of personal bias will be evident, as with any scholarly article, and this is true of Devadason and Meng’s work …show more content…
This is the case as females in many parts of Asia do not obtain the same human rights as that of men, and so, are heavily mistreated by employees, businesses and institutions. This is as such a major issue as there has been an accelerated rise in the number of women, especially from Indonesia, searching for employment as a domestic worker. It is suggested in the article that, “conventional international legal approaches to human rights generally fail to construct the household as a site within which rights abuses can take place and rights themselves can be claimed”. Thus, Elias comes to a similar conclusion to that of Devadason and Meng, that genuine change needs to occur within the legal systems of these Asian countries to decrease the incidence of loss of basic human rights for male and female migrant workers and abuse within the labour force. Ultimately it is declared that “ activism must be firmly focused on addressing the challenge of social reproduction and how the invisibilisation of socially reproductive labour remains central to both economic development and authoritarian rule in South-East Asia” if any real, and positive change is to occur at
In her piece, she makes specific reference to the female population of migrant domestic workers that are constantly being abused and discriminated against within the work and labour force. She discusses and exposes the “limitations of top-down labour rights approaches” and how “NGO’s have an important role to play in ‘translating’ human rights into meaningful strategy for pro-migrant worker political activism”. As the consideration of women comes into play in Elias’ article, the common theme of gender issues can be identified between all authors in their respective pieces and this acts as an important concept through which will be analysed. Elias discusses that the main issue with migrant women in the workforce are that they “are subject to harsh (and often abusive) workplace practices, social stigmatisation and systems of intense workplace control”. The discussion that Elias poses, while accurate, is simplistic in terms and it is inevitable that some degree of personal bias will be evident, as with any scholarly article, and this is true of Devadason and Meng’s work …show more content…
This is the case as females in many parts of Asia do not obtain the same human rights as that of men, and so, are heavily mistreated by employees, businesses and institutions. This is as such a major issue as there has been an accelerated rise in the number of women, especially from Indonesia, searching for employment as a domestic worker. It is suggested in the article that, “conventional international legal approaches to human rights generally fail to construct the household as a site within which rights abuses can take place and rights themselves can be claimed”. Thus, Elias comes to a similar conclusion to that of Devadason and Meng, that genuine change needs to occur within the legal systems of these Asian countries to decrease the incidence of loss of basic human rights for male and female migrant workers and abuse within the labour force. Ultimately it is declared that “ activism must be firmly focused on addressing the challenge of social reproduction and how the invisibilisation of socially reproductive labour remains central to both economic development and authoritarian rule in South-East Asia” if any real, and positive change is to occur at