On Tuesday, the Malaysian Press Institute (MPI), in collaboration with the United States embassy, convened the 6th national workshop on Reporting on Trafficking in Persons at a hotel in Alor Star, Kedah.
In his opening remarks, MPI chief executive officer Datuk Chamil Wariya said MPI was grateful for the continued support of the US embassy in these annual workshops, where some 140 journalists from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia had been trained to play meaningful roles in combating human trafficking.
Following that, US Ambassador Joseph Y. Yun, in his keynote address, told participants not to expect the global problem of human trafficking to go away any time soon. On the contrary, he expected it would get worse and Malaysia should do more in the years to come because of, inter alia, recent events in Myanmar and the influx of boat people.
There were seven sessions, including a study visit to the Perlis Immigration, Customs, Quarantine Complex in Padang Besar on the second day of the three-day workshop.
During the first session, four speakers explained the important roles played by public agencies in combating human trafficking. They were Kevin Geh Kien Meng, deputy undersecretary of the Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons, Home Ministry; Mohamad Abazafree Mohd Abbas, head of General Crimes and Public Order Unit, Prosecution Division of the Attorney General’s Chambers, Putrajaya; Superintendent Cha Hoong Fong of the Criminal Investigation Department, Bukit Aman; and Jennifer Spande, deputy political counsellor of the US embassy.
During the second and third sessions, I spoke on ethical reporting of human trafficking victims and highlighted the provisions of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants 2007 (referred to as ATIPSOM), amended in 2010 and last year.
Malaysia has had an erratic performance over the past decade in its efforts to combat human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. Despite strenuous efforts, it has not, as yet, achieved Tier 1 ranking in terms of compliance of minimum standards set by the US law (Section 108 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000).
From 2001 to 2009, Malaysia was placed on Tier 2 of the Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) Report four times — 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. In 2006 and 2008, Malaysia was placed lower down on the Tier 2 Watch List, while in 2001, 2007 and 2009, Malaysia was placed on Tier 3 (the lowest tier).
In 2014, Malaysia was automatically downgraded to Tier 3 because it had been on Tier 2 for four years (2010 to 2013). According to The Guardian (a United Kingdom daily), Malaysia was being “punished” for its poor record in those preceding years. An online edition on June 20, 2014 said Malaysia was focusing more on “getting rid of illegal aliens rather than a progressive compassionate response to its many victims of trafficking”.
A Malaysian daily’s online edition on June 30, 2014 commented on this poor performance: “Malaysia identified 650 human trafficking victims last year but only nine traffickers were caught and convicted. This is among the main reasons why the country has dropped to Tier 3 in the TIP 2014 report — the lowest ranking, leaving it in the same category as Thailand, Venezuela, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. The report states that Malaysia decreased its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts and reported fewer investigations and convictions in 2013 as compared with 2012.”
Given the poor rating, many were pleasantly surprised that in the 2015 TIP Report, Malaysia was upgraded to Tier 2. This recent report stated that Malaysia has not fully complied with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it is “making significant efforts to do so”. Many assumed that these “significant efforts” referred to the passage in Parliament of the 2015 amendment to the law which resulted in:
THE establishment of a high-level committee;
ALLOWING trafficked victims who have been given a protection order to move about freely and obtain employment;
ENABLING the court to issue an order for payment of compensation to a trafficked person, after the conviction of a trafficker under the act; and,
ENABLING the court to issue an order for payment of arrears of wages.
This newspaper once stated that despite the prevalence and seriousness of the crime, human trafficking had not been viewed as a priority by law enforcement agencies. It suggested that to achieve a significant reduction in human trafficking, police, Immigration and other investigative agencies have to be trained to manage their intelligence professionally, and “to prosecute and enhance penalties for individuals engaging in sex tourism in order to reduce human trafficking in Malaysia”. (NST, Dec 31, 2014)
Last Tuesday, when asked by journalists what he would he like to see with regard to Malaysia’s continued fight to end human trafficking, the US ambassador said: “I hope to see more prosecutions and more convictions”.
I hope so, too.
Salleh Buang formerly served in the
Attorney-General’s Chambers before he left for private practice, the corporate sector and then the academia