A/HRC/44/40/Add.3 • Foreign workers holding the Visit Pass Temporary Employment (PLKS) are not allowed to bring their spouses to Malaysia. • Non-citizen spouse whom are divorced to Malaysian citizen and have children possessing Malaysian citizenship are allowed to work in a few sectors. Paragraph 62 Migrant workers make up a sizeable part of the overall population and have been central to the country’s economic success. Yet they have deliberately been left in a regulatory grey zone that facilitates sometimes scandalous abuses and generally poor conditions. The time has come for the Malaysian government to acknowledge their existence, role, and vulnerability in its policymaking. A starting point is to make a rigorous estimate of the total population of migrant workers and migrants and to reflect their presence in poverty statistics. The government should also rapidly enhance the enforcement of labor protections, ensure migrant workers can assert their rights without fear of deportation, and extend standard employment protections to domestic workers. It should engage more substantively with countries of origin to ensure the establishment of safe corridors and the elimination of exorbitant recruitment fees. And it should reverse the policy of excluding them from social services. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • The migrant labour force comprise only make up to less than 20% of the overall labour force (refer para 57). Paragraph 63 The Malaysian economy would in fact be better off if migrant workers, both documented and undocumented, were able to access affordable healthcare without fear of deportation, and if the government were to expand existing efforts to enrol stateless children in public schools regardless of immigration status. Finally, the government should adopt major international instruments pertaining to the rights of migrant workers, and withdraw its reservation to article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child pertaining to deprivation of liberty. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • The Ministry of Education of Malaysia (MOE) upholds the best interest of the child under all circumstances and acknowledges the need for undocumented non-citizen children to access basic education. MOE continuously contributes towards the progress of fulfilling the rights to education for all. However, Malaysia has made reservations on Article 28 (a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which requires the State parties to provide free primary education to all children regardless of their citizenship status. Malaysia upholds the reservation because all policies pertaining to the rights to education for undocumented non-citizen or refugee children should be in coherent with other legislations and policies by other ministries and agencies in Malaysia (refer Para 44). Children Paragraph 64 The child poverty rate in Malaysia is three times the national poverty rate, yet there is no adequate support system for addressing the problem. The Department of Social Welfare’s Children’s Financial Assistance scheme is particularly inadequate, with coverage declining since 2013 so that by 2019 just 69,000 children were covered, out of 160,000 below the national poverty line and 1.8 million who would be considered poor under a contextually appropriate poverty line. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • Financial Assistance for Children is given amounting to RM100 for each person up to a maximum of RM450 for each family with more than 4 children to assist underprivileged children so they can continue living with their family and get care and attention. 34