Embassy records show that nearly 3,000 Nepali workers have died in Malaysia in the past 12 years, 166 of them in the five months between July and November last year alone.
For that period, nine Nepali migrant workers on average died every week in Malaysia, according to the embassy further.
Most of them died from what health experts call Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome (SUDS).
“Just a few months back, another fellow Nepali worker simply dropped dead while walking to work,” said Dilip Malla, 43, who is employed as a security guard in Damansara. “We later learned it was a heart attack. It was so sudden.”
Doctors and labour activists are puzzled at the abnormally high mortality rate from SUDS among Nepali overseas contract workers not just in Malaysia but also in Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf countries.
Although research is sparse and autopsies are rarely performed on dead migrants, the high fatality rate is attributed to overwork in hot and humid conditions, excessively air-conditioned living quarters, worry about family back home, as well as stress from exploitation and low pay.
In the case of any sudden unexplained death an autopsy should automatically be conducted. So what is going on in Malaysia towards its invited guest workers?
The answer appears to be complicity at the highest levels in slavery and abuse and it seems to be another symptom of Malaysia’s increasing enthusiasm in adopting Arab practices over recent years.
What is going on in Malaysia is called people trafficking in modern parlance – traditionally it is called slavery and the rest of the world is waking up to the scale of this pernicious exploitation, which is being condoned by the governing group of BN families who now run everything in the country.
These people plainly admire and emulate ultra-rich Arabs and consider them ‘blessed’ for their easy, if transient, fortunes. However, this ‘good fortune’ may turn out not to be what it’s cracked up to be, given the misery, debauchery and hypocrisy that seethes beneath the white robes of Arabia.
The rest of the world will reserve its admiration for the brave and dutiful sons of countries like Nepal, who seek to support their loved ones by travelling into distant lands, where they are shocked to be greeted by appalling abuse, inflicted by lying and cheating exploitative ’employers’ in places like Arabia and now Malaysia.