On track to fight people smuggling

With improving steps, US confident Malaysia will pull itself out of Tier 3

KUCHING: The United States is confident Malaysia will pull itself out of Tier 3 of its State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, saying the Government has made efforts to make enforcement more victim-centred.

This comes as proposed amendments to the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007 were read in Parliament, suggesting that victims of trafficking be given permission to move freely and to work during the interim protection order.

US embassy deputy chief of mission Edgard Kagan said the State Department was “positively impressed” with the efforts put in place by the Government since the country was downgraded from the Tier 2 Special Watch List to Tier 3 in June 2014.

The ranking placed Malaysia on the same level as North Korea, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia, having “failed to comply with the most basic international requirements to prevent trafficking and protect victims within its borders”.

Kagan said he was confident Malaysia would be upgraded from the lowest rank as it makes changes to the Act’s legal framework and enforcement co-ordination – but said actual implementation of such measures were still in question.

“Certainly we are confident as change takes place there will be an upgrade, we have no doubts. When exactly that will happen will be driven largely by what actually happens in how traffickers are treated and their victims,” he told reporters during the Malaysian Press Institute’s (MPI) Reporting on Trafficking in Persons (TiP) workshop in Kuching.

The US report estimates some two million documented and two million or more undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia.

They are brought in primarily from Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Thailand, and are usually exploited in local labour and sex industries here.

The Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons (Mapo) national strategic office principal assistant secretary Pius Anak Inggong said the council had taken recommendations from the US State Department report in formulating amendments to the Act.

He said that 2,008 trafficking victims had been saved since February 2008. About 1,276 human traffickers have been convicted in court during that time.

But the prosecution rate in Malaysia was low, said Universiti Teknologi Malaysia ( UTM) visiting professor Salleh Buang, adding that Malaysia’s poor protection of trafficking victims led to fewer witnesses willing to help convict perpetrators.

“You can’t blame the Attorney-General’s Chambers when police don’t bring enough evidence. In the eyes of the United States, we fail to do enough in protecting victims and because of that they will not testify,” he said during the workshop.

The US report said the Government’s enforcement policy which lumped victims as being part of the trafficking crime and poor treatment in shelters discouraged victims from co-operating with the authorities.

Certainly we are confident as change takes place there will be an upgrade, we have no doubts. — Edgard Kagan