Forgotten, Orang Asli in a Pahang town live off a landfill of toxic garbage
ROMPIN, Feb 14 ― Bandar Muadzam Shah is a picturesque, attractive
town. It is the kind of town that people hope they could retire to. Like
Taiping in Perak; or Muar in Johor.
What does it not have? A university, hospital, colleges, beautifully
landscaped botanical gardens, nice schools, clinics, restaurants and in
these days of slow growth and high unemployment, it helps that the cost
of living is low.
But scattered within minutes of the beautifully tarred two-lane
highways and leafy roads are communities and settlements of different
tribes of the Orang Asli, people who have lived there for more than a
hundred years in some cases. Maybe, it is an exaggeration to say the
Orang Asli live there; they merely exist.
In the four settlements we visited within a 10-15 minute radius of
the charming town, only one had electricity and none had running water.
In one of the settlements, houses using political parties’ plastic
banners, presumably from the 2018 general elections, as their roofing
and curtains for their windows, the Orang Asli, of the Jakun tribe,
bath, drink, empty their bowels and cook from a stagnant pond. Barely
yards away, along the highway, there is electricity and running water.
The paradox, nay, the travesty and injustice, did not escape us.
But perhaps the one that tugged hardest at the heart strings was the
lot of the Jakun in a landfill operated by a company whose board of
directors are filled with Datuks, who did not respond to e-mails and
letters to work with charitable groups willing to help the Orang Asli.
When we arrived there last week (February 3), it was apparently a good day for Bapak Motot.
A man in a red mini-lorry with several workers had come to buy the
bags of recyclables that his community ― which includes children still
feeding off the bottle ― had collected, scavenging through the landfill
the past few days. The waste, unfortunately, includes hazardous
bio-waste and syringes.
To Bapak Motot, as he refers to himself, it is pay-day for his people
as they lift the litter bags separately filled with plastic, glass and
metals, and place them on a weighing scale. The contractor, a mild
looking goateed man from the town, will pay hard cash today. In a good
month, Bapak Motok proudly states he can earn up to RM700 to feed his
family.
That is as good a news that Bapak Motok will get on any given day.
A stone’s throw away, some 15 men, women and children huddle under a
makeshift shelter, oblivious of the strong stench of decaying rubbish
that fills the air. They are waiting for the scorching afternoon sun to
set before venturing out again into the toxic garbage to separate the
recyclables which they can sell.
This landfill, located in Bukit Ibam in the town of Muadzam Shah, has become a magnet for the Orang Asli in Pahang.
“This is considered easier work for them as they earn more money here
than if they get work anywhere else,” says 71-year old Pak Long, who
was our guide. He spoke reasonably good English as he had worked as a
labourer in Singapore for many years.
Pak Long lives about 10 minutes away in another Orang Asli village
called Kampung Teraling which has minimal electricity provided by a
solar panel donated by an NGO. His village, too, has no running water.
Pak Long, perhaps one of the few in his community who can read, does
not approve of the way these families in the landfill live. He says it
robs them of their dignity when young and old alike rummage through
decomposing and toxic waste just to feed themselves.
The Orang Asli in the landfill have various skin ailments and fall
ill too often. It is not surprising. They have no protective gear and
when they leave the dump in the evenings, they have neither running
water to clean themselves nor proper nutrition and proper shelter from
the elements.
Bapak Motot, when asked why they brought the children to the
landfill, said there was no one to look after them while their parents
went through the landfill. The landfill not only serves as their
playground but some of the kids, even as young as four, help their
parents seek out recyclable materials. It is not a sight for the
soft-hearted.
Prominent Malaysian photojournalist SC Shekar first chanced upon this
community a year ago (February 2019) while researching the subject of
water scarcity in the Muadzam Shah and Tasik Chini areas for his book on
the Rivers of Malaysia. Both his wife, a lawyer, and he have since been
helping the communities here supplying the families with food whenever
they visit, and learning materials for the children.
They have sought help from others but while there are those who
generously open their wallets to buy milk and foodstuff, none, save the
government, can provide a long-term solution such as running water,
electricity, education and a proper roof over their heads.
Shekar said he has visited many landfills in the slums of Southeast
Asia. But neither he nor we expected that we would witness it in a
country like Malaysia.
For Shekar, the sight of children, including toddlers, rummaging
through garbage together with their parents, is what drove him to keep
returning to these villages every few weeks, bringing foodstuff,
medicine and milk for the children to help them.
“There were at least 25 children present when I first visited this
landfill,” he said, adding that he was initially stunned and later,
disgusted that such a situation could exist minutes away from the luxury
of the finely manicured botanical gardens.
“These children run around barefoot amongst the garbage and are often
injured by broken glass, rusty tin cans and other sharp objects. I have
personally seen hazardous medical waste like syringes and items
contaminated by blood as well.
“What is even worse is that bottle-feeding children have also been
recruited to scavenge with their families. Needless to say, none of
these children go to school, have proper nutrition or get any medical
assistance. It is a disaster,” Shekar adds.
The scene at the landfill is a hint of much larger and complex issues
faced by the Orang Asli, particularly the Jakun tribe in Pahang.
The Jakun communities have traditionally lived near the jungle, and
they have been reliant on jungle resources. Despite the authorities’
plan to resettle them into new villages with amenities under the
Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula, (The Resettlement Plan) many have opted
not to move from their familiar surroundings.
Some hunt or harvest resources from the jungles to feed their families or indulge in small-scale farming.
Yet, they live in abject poverty, where their homes are makeshift
shacks made from a collection of tarpaulin, zinc and wood; there is no
electricity, clean water and proper sanitation in their settlements but
minutes away, the most modern amenities are there for the townspeople of
Bandar Muadzam Shah. The travesty and tragedy is that the Orang Asli
have lived in this area for centuries before development drove them
deeper and deeper into the jungles. Today, there is not much jungle they
can go as the development is on the fringes in every corner of their
settlement. Except their own.
Dr Teh Su Thye, who runs the NGO Global Peace Foundation Malaysia has
worked with the Orang Asli for a long time and knows their situation
well. His non-profit organisation has worked with various Orang Asli
communities nationwide but he says the Jakun of Pahang are probably the
most impoverished.
In the last four years, Global Peace has been working in the Pekan
and Rompin districts of Pahang, and addressed some of the basic needs in
over 40 villages through its clean water and solar energy programmes.
Pak Long’s Kampung Teraling is one of the villages. Global Peace had
helped the villagers build a well, install a solar-powered pump so that
water can be piped to the centre of the village.
“I no longer have to walk 600 steps to draw water from the well,” says Pak Long.
Apart from the lack of basic amenities, Dr Teh notes that illiteracy
and school dropouts are other key issues faced by the Orang Asli. “More
than 80 per cent of the children in these villages do not attend school
due to poverty, distance to school and ignorance,” he says.
Like Pak Long, Dr Teh believes that education and capacity building
are the tools needed to help the Jakun tribe enjoy a better and
healthier life. “We need to offer them ways to diversify their
livelihood that matches their lifestyle,” Dr Teh says.
However, finding and implementing a comprehensive and impactful
solution for the Orang Asli requires collaborations between the public
and private sectors.
Says Shekar: “Malaysians have a duty of care and the responsibility to render all the assistance to the Orang Asli community.”
Shekar has written appeal letters, accompanied by photographs, asking people to help.
Copies of the letter were sent to senior members of the government
and leading members of society over the last two months but there was
hardly a ripple. Neither the current federal leadership nor the state
government nor the concession holders of the landfill, who live off the
backs of the Jakuns, seem to care too much.
It is, as Shekar says, as if they prefer to pretend the Orang Asli do not exist ― Malaysia’s own forgotten people.
* Ruth Wong was a journalist for many years, working for local
and international publications in Malaysia and Singapore. She is now an
associate at the ECM Libra Foundation which funds and undertakes
charitable work, particularly in education, with indigenous communities,
in both east Malaysia and the peninsula, in particular the Orang Asli. - Malay Mail, 14/2/2020
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