PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has been downgraded in the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report released this morning, with the reason being it does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.
The report said Malaysia, which was placed on the Tier 2 Watchlist in last year’s report, failed to improve even after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity.
“Therefore, Malaysia was downgraded to Tier 3. Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking such as prosecuting and convicting among others.
“However, the government continued to conflate human trafficking and migrant smuggling crimes and did not adequately address or criminally pursue credible allegations from multiple sources alleging labour trafficking, including in the rubber manufacturing industry and palm oil sector, with the government owning 33% of the third largest palm oil company in the world,” said the report released at 1am today,
The report outlined several efforts made by the government over the last year and also ongoing ones to address the issues raised in the 2020 report but said they were obscured by poor and insufficient implementation or lack of effective cooperation among the agencies involved in law enforcement.
“From April 2020 to March 2021, law enforcement authorities conducted 118 human trafficking investigations and referred 52 suspected sex trafficking cases and 57 labour trafficking cases to the attorney-general for prosecution.
“The Attorney-General’s Chamber initiated the prosecution of 79 alleged traffickers. The courts convicted 25 human traffickers and migrant smugglers, but did not disaggregate the data nor provide case details,” it said.
It further said the government did not report efforts to coordinate with foreign law enforcement to investigate or prosecute trafficking cases, adding that it continued to conflate human trafficking and migrant smuggling, which impeded law enforcement and victim identification efforts.
The State Department said official complicity continued to undermine anti-trafficking efforts. It said ongoing corruption related to processes for foreign nationals to work in Malaysia increased the cost of migration and consequently increased migrant workers’ vulnerability to trafficking through debt-based coercion.
“Corrupt immigration officials facilitate trafficking by accepting bribes from brokers and smugglers at border crossings, including at airports. Some government officials profit from bribes and direct involvement in extortion from and exploitation of migrants,” it said.
While it commended some of Malaysia’s positive action for initiating 57 investigations against employers in the rubber-product manufacturing sector to confirm compliance with housing laws, it said the authorities did not investigate these allegations as potential trafficking crimes.
“In December 2020, the government filed 19 charges against a disposable glove manufacturing company under the Worker’s Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act (Act 226) for inhumane living conditions in migrant workers’ dormitories. Another 30 charges were filed against another rubber glove manufacturer following a series of raids.
“However, the government did not report investigating or prosecuting these companies for human trafficking crimes despite credible evidence of debt-based coercion,” it said.
Although the government continued to operate an interagency anti-trafficking law enforcement task force, the department said coordination among agencies remained insufficient, citing the poor collaboration among the police, immigration, and customs officials.
Organised crime syndicates involved
The report said large organised crime syndicates are responsible for some instances of trafficking, adding that employers utilise practices indicative of forced labour, such as restrictions on movement, violating contracts, wage fraud, assault, threats of deportation, imposition of significant debts, and passport retention.
“Malaysian law allows employers to hold workers’ passports with their permission, but it is difficult to determine if workers have freely given permission, and some employers retain the passports to prevent workers from changing jobs.
“Traffickers use large smuggling debts incurred by refugees to subject them to debt-based coercion. North Koreans working in Malaysia may have been forced to work by their government. Chinese nationals working for Chinese government-affiliated construction projects in Malaysia are vulnerable to forced labour,” it said.
The department said traffickers recruit some young foreign women and girls – mainly from Southeast Asia, although also recently from Nigeria – ostensibly for legal work in Malaysian restaurants, hotels and beauty salons, or for brokered marriages, but instead compel them into commercial sex.
“Traffickers use fraudulent recruitment practices to lure Rohingya women and girls out of refugee camps in Bangladesh to Malaysia, where they are coerced to engage in commercial sex. Traffickers also exploit some men and children, including Malaysians, into commercial sex,” it said.
Prioritised recommendations
Recommendations to the Malaysian government to improve the situation include:
- Increase efforts to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, including household workers and palm oil plantation workers;
- Increase efforts to prosecute and convict more trafficking cases;
- Make public the results of investigations involving corrupt officials to increase transparency and deterrence and hold officials criminally accountable when they violate the law;
- Increase law enforcement capacity to investigate and prosecute trafficking cases;
- Expand labour protections for domestic workers and investigate allegations of domestic worker abuse;
- Take steps to eliminate recruitment or placement fees charged to workers and ensure recruitment fees are paid by employers;
- Create a system for access to timely and accurate interpretation in victims’ primary languages available to law enforcement, the court system, and shelters;
- Continue to expand cooperation with NGOs to provide some victim rehabilitation services;
- Effectively enforce the law prohibiting employers from retaining passports without employees’ consent, including by increasing resources for labour inspectors, and include language explicitly stating passports will remain in the employee’s possession in model contracts and future bilateral memoranda of understanding with labour source countries;
- Train relevant officials, including labour inspectors and immigration officials, on SOPs for victim identification that include information on trafficking indicators;
- Reduce prosecution delays, including by providing improved guidance to prosecutors on pursuing trafficking charges, and increase judicial familiarity with the full range of trafficking crimes, particularly forced labour; and
- Increase efforts to identify trafficking victims among Chinese workers on Chinese-government affiliated infrastructure projects.
For the full report, see here.
We are live on Telegram, subscribe here for breaking news and the latest announcements.