Activist slams call to whip undocumented migrants

 

Migrants are usually duped by traffickers and smugglers when entering the country, says human rights activist Adrian Pereira.

PETALING JAYA: A migrant rights activist has slammed a suggestion by a senior policeman to whip migrants who repeatedly enter the country illegally, saying it was both inhumane and pointless.

North-South Initiative (NSI) executive director Adrian Pereira said whipping was tantamount to torture.

It was more important, he said, for authorities to address how migrants become undocumented and how they are smuggled as well as trafficked into the country.

This included the mismanagement of cross-border migration.

North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira.

The human rights activist added that migrants were usually forced to choose “risky” options, and that includes being duped by traffickers and smugglers.

“And this is why migrants should not be punished.

“Harsh punishments usually mean that the real perpetrators involved in smuggling and trafficking, the masterminds and kingpins escape and the victims are punished,” he told FMT.

Pereira added the solution to the issue was certainly not dispensing harsh punishment.

“Various civil society organisations have been proposing for years that these so-called offences be seen through an administrative lens instead of a criminal one as these migrants were here for work, not to commit crime,” he said.

“Even Suhakam had proposed alternatives many years ago on how the authorities should address the issue.”

Earlier today Sinar Harian reported internal security and public order director Hazani Ghazali as saying undocumented migrants who repeatedly entered the country illegally should be whipped.

This he said “would serve as a lesson” for repeat offenders. - FMT