THE Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom) 2007 may be reviewed to give it more bite by including "attempts of trafficking". This will allow it to be used to prosecute human trafficking syndicates caught halfway through their operations.
Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Council division secretary Syuhaida Abdul Wahab Zen said incorporating the provision into the act would allow authorities to charge perpetrators who did not meet all the criteria for "trafficking".
Section 2 of Atipsom defines "trafficking in persons" as all actions of recruiting, conveying, transferring, acquiring, maintaining, harbouring, providing or receiving a person for the purpose of exploitation.
The absence of the provision, she told NST Focus, had deterred enforcers from charging perpetrators with "trafficking" as the exploitation of the victims had yet to happen.
Instead, they had to resort to charging the syndicates with "smuggling", even in situations where other indicators of "trafficking" were present.
Such was the case in Wang Kelian where, in May 2015, police discovered 139 graves and 106 bodies, believed to be Rohingya, as well as 29 undocumented
immigrant detention camps deep in the jungles of Bukit Genting Perah and Bukit Wang Burma, a few hundred metres from the Malaysia-Thai border.
Syuhaida said the four Thai nationals linked to the case earlier this year could be charged only with smuggling and not trafficking as the victims were not yet "exploited".
"Usually they (syndicates) are only charged with smuggling because the trafficking part or exploitation part did not occur yet as they are stopped (from entering the country)," she said.
"This is also the same with the Wang Kelian case, where four Thai nationals were charged with smuggling and not trafficking as the trafficking part did not occur yet.
"We don't have that in our law at the moment. I believe other countries don't really have that as well, but the challenge is the same in all countries, especially Asean countries, where we cannot punish an act that has not happened yet.
"But the way forward is to see it from that angle of the law and to see how we can introduce
this provision perhaps in the future."
In June, four Thai men were separately charged with the smuggling of migrants involving two Myanmar nationals in Bukit Wang Burma, Wang Kelian, Padang Besar, between 2013 and 2015.
The charge, framed under Section 26A of Atipsom, carries a maximum jail term of 20 years and a fine, or both, upon conviction.
This package of stories by NST Focus is part of the Tip The Narrative: Beyond The Headlines Fellowship Programme by Project Liber8