Sabah a hotspot for pimps, prostitutes?

Sabah is a known hotspot for Indonesia and Philippines' illegal human trade.

TAWAU: Nunukan, in East Kalimantan, is within visual reach of Tawau, Sabah.

It is a busy transit point for more than just tourist and traders. The island town which borders Tawau is a hotspot for pimps, teen prostitutes and human trafficking.

In October last year a report in Indonesia’s Kompas media revealed that 20% of students in Nunukan had indulged in prostitution at one time or another.

Last week the Nunukan Women Empowerment and Family Planning Agency (BPPKBD) said they had documented nine cases of human trafficking on the island since December last year.

Nunukan is the main transit point to Tawau. The island has nine sub-districts – Krayan, Krayan Selatan, Lumbis, Sembakung, Nunukan, Nunukan Selatan, Sebatik, Sebatik Barat and Sebuku. The later three sub-districts is well known among Tawau natives.

The Indonesian consulate in Sabah is both aware and alert to the situation and have processed several cases of human trafficking involving pimps and victims sending them back to Nunukan.

According to the BPPKBD Nunukan has been in the spotlight for some time as a human trafficking hotspot mostly due to its close proximity with Sabah’s porous border.

Limited surveillance resources on either side is seen as a reason for the perennial illegal trade.

According to Nunukan BPPKBD chief Mardiah: “Our area is a good route for such cases because supervision here is still limited.

“Most of the women are lured here with promises of jobs and good salaries in Malaysia.”

The Jakarta Globe News reported Mardiah as saying that a majority of the victims are from Java – East, West and Central.

“These women are eventually forced to work at nightclubs or similar places,” she said adding that the perpetrators use various modes to transport the victims into Malaysia.

Officially there are ferries commutting between Nunukan and Tawau, which sits on the east coast of Sabah.

There are scheduled trips twice a day and rates are RM65 per head. But unofficially the sea between Nunukan and Tawas is littered with boats for hire.

Sabah ‘worst place’

Mardiah said the known modes operandi for this illegal trade is through the Migrant Workers Placement Agency (PJTKI).

Others slip into Malaysia as legimitate tourists.

Mardiah’s views were echoed last week by Bukit Aman Human Trafficking Unit, ASP Jimrey Hillary.

Hillary too said majority of human trafficking cases entered the country via proper channels. Some, he said, had a tendency to overstay and eventually became illegal immigrants.

He also told the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry in Sabah that the US State Department viewed Malaysia as a transit country for sexual workers from Indonesia, China, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

According to Filipino NGO Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado Sabah is “one of the worst places” for any Filipino worker and national.

“Now with the ongoing conflict and the Philippine government’s complicity, we fear that it will become a more dangerous place for Filipinos and their children,” she said alluding to the crackdown in Sabah post the Sulu incursion.

She said Sabah is one of the most common “transit points” of trafficked Filipinos on their way to Malaysia or other nearby parts of Asia.

Citing reports from a fact-finding mission conducted by Migrante International and other migrant groups in 2009, Bragas-Regalado said that around 80-90% of overseas Filipino Workers in Sabah were trafficked.

This issue will be raised in next month’s international conference on trafficking of young women and children.

The interactive conference, organised by the World Youth Foundation will be held in Malacca between Sept 3-7.