Kathmandu, April 14 -- With Malaysia suspending the intake of foreign workers in sectors other than plantation and security for the past 10 months, human traffickers have increasingly routed Nepali migrant workers through Thailand to enter Malaysia illegally.

The workers are first taken to Thailand on visit visas, then trafficked across the border by boat over the Golok River into Malaysia's Kelantan state. Despite border tightening and mandatory immigration checks at Rantau Panjang, traffickers continue to misuse the crossing, officials at Nepal's embassy in Kuala Lumpur said.

Locals in Thailand's Narathiwat Province, where students regularly cross the Golok River for education, have objected to the clampdown, but authorities have step...