IN Malaysia, getting the college agents to speak with us was surprisingly – and worryingly – easy.

All we had to do was go undercover as someone looking to recruit foreign workers. The agents were all more than happy to meet up.

We met one of them at a coffee shop just outside Kuala Lumpur city. We were supposed to meet his boss, a “Datuk” (an honorific title in Malaysia) who owns a college, but we were told at the last minute that this man would meet us instead.

He doesn’t beat around the bush. He plainly tells us he can secure foreign workers for us by using the college to issue them student visas.

What’s more, he can keep them in Malaysia for up to 10 years by enrolling them in a succession of courses, from basic language courses and diplomas all the way up to a PhD.

“It just depends on whether you can pay the cost or not,” he says.

“Everything to do with the visa, I’m handling, so you don’t have to worry. If you agree, and you have no objections, I can process it tomorrow.”

MALAYSIA-BASED human rights activist Ashikur Rahman has been on a mission to put an end to these student traffickers, as well as the larger syndicates involved.

With his help, we followed the their trail to Dhaka.

“This is the epicentre of the international student trafficking trade,” he says of the town where our van was parked, the aptly named Farmgate.

There, we are shocked to find just how big an industry student recruitment is in Bangladesh. Everywhere around us were signages openly advertising student visa services, under different guises: Visa processing services, education counselling, study abroad programmes.

“The new generation of Bangladeshi youths want quality education. And they need to go abroad for that, because the number of universities in Bangladesh are limited,” says Ashik.

“Sometimes it seems like we’re not studying – we’re doing a business deal,” says university student Sabil Akash, in clear, precise English. “Our parents, they are having a business deal. They are trying to find profit from us.”

We met him along with a group of his friends just outside a local university. They were gathered around a guitar, singing. Hundreds, if not thousands, more thronged the street, easily identifiable by the student tags around their necks.

Unfortunately, there simply aren’t enough university places for all these would-be students.
“That’s why so many are interested to study abroad. We do not have enough seats (in local universities) to accommodate our population,” says Sabil.

Bangladesh has a burgeoning youth population, with around 50% considered youth. While that bodes well for the economy, it also means more competition for jobs and university placements. Youth unemployment in 2017 was measured at 11%.

Everybody wants to get ahead, desperate to survive.

“Yeah, there are a lot of agents over here,” one of the students exclaims. “There are so many that you can’t even count. Some are good, some are also fake.

“They reach us through email, Facebook, even through mail and flyers.”

Another student related how he consulted with a number of agents about the possibility of studying in Malaysia. “What I found is, out of ten agents, only three are good. The other seven, they are fake.”

We ask several others if they know anyone who has fallen for their lies, and the response is almost unanimous: “Yes, of course. It is common.”

And Sabil and his friends are by no means in the throes of poverty. They are urban youths who are part of Bangladesh’s growing middle class. Further away from the capital, that desperation only grows.

“Over here (in Dhaka), we have more information,” says Sabil. “But outside Dhaka, it is not only easier (for agents to cheat students), it is easier than you can imagine.” Around him the traffic continues. “Who wouldn’t take the chance of going abroad? If you don’t have a good future, and someone offers you a better future, wouldn’t you take it?”

Or as Ashikur puts it, these agents are taking advantage of the students’ “innocence”.

Farid was one such student. He was forced to drop out of the private Bangladesh University of Business and Technology after the first three semesters due to financial reasons, and that’s when an agent approached his father.

They paid the agent the equivalent of nearly three years’ wages, with clear instructions on the course he wanted – a degree in computer science and engineering. When he finally received his offer letter, it was for a diploma in culinary arts.

“He told me ‘don’t worry, when you get to Malaysia, you can change the course by talking to the principal’,” he recalls. “I didn’t trust him, but my father did.”

But when he arrived in Malaysia, he was told the only way he could change course was by waiting the entire year, and reapplying for a new visa.

Just like Mahfuz, he was forced to work illegally to recoup the three years’ wages he paid the agent.

“I came here to study – only to study,” says Farid, knowing the common perception among Malaysians that Bangladeshis flout visa rules so they can work in Malaysia.

“But now, my dream is destroyed.”

IN Nilkhet, around the corner from the largest higher education institution in Dhaka, there is a sprawling black market for books.

According to Ashikur, the entire complex of makeshift stalls and tiny shoplots sprouted from a handful of vendors selling secondhand books. Today, it is an entire industry of enterprising Bangladeshis pirating books for sale. Many were selling academic books for tertiary education.
If there was any doubt about Bangladeshi youths’ desire for education, the Nilkhet book market puts them to rest.

We watched as young boys photocopied books en masse, bound the pages together and put them on racks for sale. Some were even in the business of refurbishing old books by cutting off their worn sides.

“Bangladeshis want education, but many might be too poor to afford it. This is how we make it affordable,” Ashikur tells us, as we stood on a particularly busy intersection of alleyways in the middle of the book market, trying not be knocked over by the steady tide of students brushing past us.

AFTER months of undercover work in Malaysia, speaking to dozens of victims and traffickers, and investigating [HOW MANY] colleges involved, we finally found ourselves standing in the heart of the student trafficking trade – Farmgate.

Armed with a hidden microphone and camera, we worked with a Bangladeshi journalist who posed as a prospective university student to meet with five of these agents.

Ashikur claims that the agents are part of mafia-like syndicates – another reason why victims stuck in Malaysia rarely send word home of their plight or to warn others. They’re afraid of what the syndicates would do to their family members.

But on the surface, everything looks pretty legit. Their offices and the agents look proper, but the minute they start talking, the lies are evident.

“You can surely work while you are a student in Malaysia, since you have all the right documents as a student,” says one agent.

“If you want, you can work for two years after one year of studies. It’s up to you.”
The truth is, international students are only allowed to work part-time under strict circumstances, in very specific jobs, and only during semester breaks. You’d also have to get approval from the Higher Education Ministry.

One even boasted about connections at the Malaysian Embassy.

These scams are particularly worrying for Abdur Rahim Khan, who runs one of the largest student recruitment agencies in Bangladesh.

“There are quite a number of consulting firms in Bangladesh promoting education in Malaysia, but very few are doing it genuinely like us.

“Small colleges, institutes and language centres (in Malaysia), they are involved in this business. They are the main ring leaders. They need the students, they need the money. Whether (the students) come for study or for work, it doesn’t matter,” he says.

BACK in Kuala Lumpur, our journalists have spent weeks trying to find a way inside a “kongsi”, the industry term for the makeshift ghettos built to house construction workers.

Most are heavily walled-up and guarded, some even with “protection” from local gangs, or so we’re made to believe. Clearly, the construction companies do not want outsiders to know what conditions are like on the inside.

Many of the student trafficking victims we spoke to said they live in these kongsi, but we’ve only heard rumours of how bad conditions are. Finally, a Bangladeshi contact agrees to smuggle us in.

We dress up as migrant workers ourselves, keeping our cameras in nondescript bags. Our contact reminds us to keep a low profile – this kongsi is watched over by local Indian thugs.
Inside, most of the rumours were confirmed. The workers were crammed together in tiny plywood shacks, with over a hundred inhabitants to a toilet, and electricity dangerously tapped from a nearby construction site. It’s a tinderbox of fire hazards, walled off from the outside world with no clear escape route. It’s no wonder that reports of fires at kongsi are common.

Even as we were investigating the issue, a deadly fire razed down a kongsi two hours away from Kuala Lumpur. One Bangladeshi worker was killed.

In our first kongsi visit, we immediately find stories of student trafficking.

Jamal’s family borrowed heavily to pay an education agent to bring him to Malaysia. After a string of lies, exploitation and outright extortion, he has resigned himself to life in a kongsi as a low-skilled labourer.

But for now, Jamal wants to show off.

“This is my workplace,” he says, as he shows us a photo of an under-construction toilet, taken on his mobile phone.

“And this is during our meeting time.” It’s a photo of construction workers gathered before what looks like a Malaysian superviser. “And this is the work I do.” He scrolls through photos of pipe fittings, toilet bowls, sinks.

There are photos of a bathroom nearing completion. “All very beautiful,” he says in halting English. “My work, my project.”

“What about the toilets here in the kongsi?” we ask. Jamal scoffs at the comparison: “No that one is bad,” he says, shaking his head almost violently. “I don’t like it.”

The main reason Jamal and his 400 co-workers are being forced to live under such conditions is simple – money.

“For most contractors, their priority is to make as much money as possible,” says Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia (CIDB) chief executive Datuk Ahmad Asri Abdul Hamid.

“If (contractors) were to provide proper housing, the cost would be higher, so the natural choice would be to provide kongsi.”

Compounding this problem is the lack of laws on providing housing for construction workers. In a rather strange gap in legislation, the Workers’ Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 only covers the mining and plantation sectors – not construction.

Although there are guidelines put forward by government agencies and the International Labour Organisation, none are legally binding. Employers who do not provide adequate amenities for construction workers cannot be punished, unless the amenities run afoul of basic health and sanitation laws, and pose an immediate health risk. That is an extremely low standard of living.

We ask Ahmad Asri how he feels when he visits construction worker hostels. “Sad,” he says simply. “I don’t know what other word to use, when you see people living in those kind of conditions. I don’t think any Malaysian can accept (living like that).”

At the time, the Malaysian government was planning a new law to regulate construction worker housing. More than a year later, the law is still not in place.

But to Ashikur, the inhumane living conditions are just the tip of the iceberg. Because most of the workers are undocumented, having lost their student visas or had their passports confiscated by agents, they are open to all kinds of exploitation.

“These kongsi are literally outside the law,” he says. “Workers are routinely extorted, cheated of their salary, overworked, have their passports taken away. All of this happens in the kongsi, all the time.”

There, among the dense undergrowth, are shacks made of scrap wood and tarpaulin – even more poorly built than those in the kongsi. This is where the workers sleep.

According to the workers, there have been a series of immigration enforcement raids at the kongsi, so now even the kongsi are not safe for them. Some sleep out in the open, or under a highway underpass, ready to sprint into hiding if they receive news of a raid.

Activists have slammed these raids for victimising undocumented workers, even though most are actually victims of some form of trafficking or exploitation.

“I made a mistake coming here (to Malaysia),” Jamal tells us. “If I knew it would be this way, I wouldn’t have come.”

But he’s already here. He’s crossed into Malaysian borders, and Malaysian laws dictate that he is working here illegally, even though he was cheated.

He can choose to return to Bangladesh, but that would mean forfeiting the huge amount he paid to get here in the first place and returning to a mountain of debt impossible to repay. He could try filing a report, but we know how that would end. Jamal has no choice but to stay.

WHEN informed about the student trafficking situation in Malaysia by our journalists, both the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) promised stern action.

Though officials said they were aware of the issue, MOHE drastically reduced the number of student visa approvals from Bangladesh after it became aware of our investigations.

In 2015 and 2016 alone, nearly 40,000 student visas were approved, with activists insisting that the large majority are victims of some form of trafficking or exploitation. After our first meeting with officials in late 2016, the number suddenly dipped to just over 1,000 in the first half of 2017.

Abdur Rahim confirms this, saying that the Malaysian government has stopped issuing visas for colleges.

“This is good, because college students don’t go to Malaysia to study – only university students do,” he claims.

Then Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who was also Deputy Prime Minister at the time, promised to clamp down on the traffickers and provide support for victims.
But despite our investigations having flagged over 20 colleges as being involved in trafficking, only a handful had their international student licenses revoked.

Meanwhile, immigration raids were ramped up, with an estimated 140,000 migrant workers detained and deported in the first half of 2017.

Police and immigration enforcement officers have said that their investigations into student trafficking are ongoing, but most of these colleges have been allowed to continue operating.

We have not heard of any victims we’ve spoken to receiving support from the government either.