Nazri: How migrant workers enter Malaysia major contributor to Tier 3 ranking

PARLIAMENT | Nazri Abdul Aziz (BN- Padang Rengas) has urged the government to look into the management of foreign workers entering the country, following Malaysia’s low rank in the US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2022.

The member of the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Fundamental Liberty and Constitutional Rights said that the way workers are brought into the country is a significant contributor to why Malaysia was ranked poorly.

“So we sit in the special select committee on human rights, and we observed that the entering system of these workers is a major contributing factor to the issue of trafficking.

“I would like to request looking into the way we bring workers into the country, which has led to us being ranked in Tier 3,” Nazri said during the debate session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Malaysia was placed in Tier 3 for a second consecutive year, which is also the first time the country has failed to move up after falling into the lowest spot in the report last year.

The July 2022 report declared, as it did last year, that: “The government of Malaysia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.”

Weak enforcement, corrupt officials

Meanwhile, Mujahid Yusof Rawa (Pakatan Harapan-Parit Buntar) insisted that Malaysia’s low rank was due to weak enforcement in the country, which was mentioned in the report.

The Amanah leader alleged that it was the involvement of corrupt officials which lead to inefficiency in solving the issues listed in the report.

“Our failure, proven in the report, actually lies in the issue of effective enforcement. In this report, we can make a sufficient assumption all of this occurred due to widespread corruption and bribery, so much so that it has become systemic in our efforts to resolve these problems.

“Let’s be fair to ourselves and say we have corrupt officials. When we have corrupt officials, we will come here (to the Dewan Rakyat) and continue to discuss these matters, but the ultimate problem is that we fail to prosecute those who are corrupt and are involved in human trafficking,” he said.

Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusof Rawa

Mujahid asked the Home Ministry how many officers had been found guilty but were not charged.

“Who is protecting them?” he questioned.

TIP recommendations

In the TIP report, Malaysia was advised to increase efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict more trafficking cases, but to do so separately from migrant smuggling.

This is a recommendation that was put forward in 2019 and every year since.

Similarly, the government has been repeatedly advised to increase investigations in cases involving complicit officials in forced labour crimes.

The TIP report has also called on the government to make public the results of investigations involving these corrupt officials, increase transparency and hold officials criminally accountable when they violate the law.

The report pointed out that Malaysia also remained in Tier 3 due to its failure to implement a standard operating procedure to proactively identify victims during law enforcement raids or among vulnerable populations with whom authorities came in contact.

This too was a repeated recommendation to the government in the past three years.

It also highlighted the government’s poor interagency coordination and overall inadequate victim protection services. - Mkini