Malaysian firm Top Glove, the world's largest glovemaker, vowed to clean up its labour supply chain and workplace practices after cases were uncovered of migrants toiling for long hours to pay off huge debts. It employs over 11,000 migrant workers, from countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. At some of its factories outside Kuala Lumpur, workers told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they often work long hours to earn overtime pay, and in some cases exceed the limit of overtime hours stipulated under local labour laws. Workers interviewed said they hoped to quickly repay loans of at least 5,000 Malaysian ringgit ($1,200) they took out to pay recruitment agents in their home countries. They said others were charged up to 20,000 Malaysian ringgit. Top Glove is not alone in hiring migrants who pay agents to secure a job. The practice is common across all Malaysian sectors which hire workers from overseas. Top Glove said it was not aware of its labour suppliers charging exorbitant fees to migrant workers but vowed to investigate and severe ties with unethical recruitment agents. "We will want to stop dealing with such suppliers if we know they are very unscrupulous. It's our duty to do that, we will never condone it," the company's managing director Lee Kim Meow told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We need workers, no doubt, but we will not stoop so low to support people who exploit workers," he said in an interview at the company's office in Klang, an industrial area outside the capital Kuala Lumpur.

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