Drop to Tier 3 in US human trafficking list calls for RCI, says Kula

 

Undocumented migrants being rounded up by the Immigration department in Malaysia. The country has also been a destination for trafficking victims.

KOTA KINABALU: Former human resources minister M Kula Segaran says the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government should establish a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) following a damning US report on human trafficking in Malaysia.

He said the RCI was needed to ascertain why the country had been downgraded to the lowest category of Tier 3 and also propose solutions to work its way back up the ladder.

He said the downgrade comes as no surprise as recent actions showed the government of the day did not take the matter seriously.

“Our greatest failure to date is the non-implementation of the recommendations by the special independent committee on foreign worker management led by former Court of Appeal judge Hishamudin Yunus,” he said in a statement today.

M Kula Segaran.

Kula, the Ipoh Barat MP, said the primary purpose of the committee, set up after it was sanctioned by the Cabinet in 2018, was to stop unethical, unhealthy and unfair practices in the recruitment of foreign workers.

The committee subsequently published a comprehensive report, which included 40 recommendations that he had presented to the Cabinet for deliberation.

“There was even a special Cabinet meeting just to discuss issues relating to foreign workers, where these recommendations were discussed.

“Thereafter, the Cabinet set up a committee headed by the government’s chief secretary (KSN) to suggest how the recommendations should be implemented.

“Not one proposal or recommendation has been implemented to this day. Worse, the report was never made public,” Kula said.

Malaysia was downgraded in the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report released yesterday.

It said the country had not fully met the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and was neither making significant efforts to do so.

Malaysia had been earlier placed on the Tier 2 Watchlist in the 2019 report.

Kula said the government must do more by looking at the latest technology to find solutions, adding that the relevant authorities lacked the expertise and passion to “cure” the various abuses on workers relating to human rights.

He also said during his tenure as minister, he had met Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, the home minister then, a number of times on the matter and proposed several amendments to the current labour laws that would safeguard the rights of all workers.

He noted these amendments were approved by the Cabinet in principle and the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) was completing the necessary legal work in January 2020.

“But 18 months have passed and the PN government is oblivious and incommunicado on these amendments,” he said, adding that the Sheraton Move had also robbed the Pakatan Harapan government of the opportunity to introduce the amendments.

“Question is does the PN government have the willpower to do so? Will all the suggestions by the independent committee be kept secret and swept under the carpet?

“It is never too late. If the government can implement those recommendations, have fruitful conversations with activists and stakeholders and put a long-term plan in place, we can begin to move up the rankings,” Kula said. - FMT