Appropriate living conditions are essential for the migrant workers

A health worker collecting samples for Covid-19 testing from a foreign worker at a wet market in Kuala Lumpur on May 5. — AP

Malaysians recently have been worried by news of a spike in Covid-19 infections among foreign workers. The situation is similar to what happened in Singapore with the number of local cases going down and a spike in new cases appearing among foreign workers. Clusters of Covid-19 infections have been detected at three construction sites and three immigration depots. More than 4,000 undocumented immigrants have been detained at these depots for not possessing valid travel and work documents.

As the number of cases have increased, some have started to blame foreign workers for the spread of the disease – but is it justifiable to do so?

Let us first look at the factors that work against efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus. According to the Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the main factors are the workers’ crowded living environment and poor hygiene practices. But migrant workers should not be the only ones blamed for such conditions. Aside from probably being uneducated about hygiene, it is very likely that the workers have no choice about living in crowded conditions because that is all they can afford on their low wages or because those are the accommodations that they have been provided by their employers.