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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Illegal Filipino workers expelled
from Malaysia’s Sabah state have been severely beaten by police, a
fact-finding body said on Saturday.
Thousands of Filipinos, including
women and children, remained in Malaysian detention centers “and
suffering from inhumane conditions,” said Luzviminda Ilagan, a
member of the Philippines’ House of Representatives and of the
Fact-Finding Committee on Sabah Deportees.
“Filipino detainees and those
who were already deported to the Philippines have experienced severe
beatings from Malaysian police while under detention,” she told
reporters in this southern port city, which serves as the transit
point for deported Filipinos.
Ilagan urged the government to
provide the deportees with aid to ensure that they would not return
as illegals to Sabah.
She also pushed for a House-level
inquiry into the alleged abuses by the Malaysian police. Malaysia
announced a fresh crackdown on illegals early this year and
thousands of Filipinos have been deported since.
The committee, composed of the
Association for the Rights of Children in Southeast Asia, Migrante
International and Gabriela Women’s Party, was formed to
investigate alleged human-rights abuses against undocumented
Filipino workers and immigrants in Sabah.
The state, which lies between the
Philippines to the north and Indonesia’s Kalimantan to the south,
is a magnet for immigrants who work on construction sites and
oil-palm plantations.
Malaysian authorities say 130,000
illegal migrants are in Sabah but local politicians put the figure
at as high as 500,000.
According to the Philippine
government, an estimated 200,000 Filipinos are living and working in
Malaysia without valid visas and nearly 3,000 are in jail waiting to
be deported.
--AFP
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