PETALING JAYA: An MP and a rights activist have called out home minister Hamzah Zainudin for citing “different laws and practices” for Malaysia’s Tier 3 standing in the latest US Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, saying it is a poor excuse.
Klang MP Charles Santiago and North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira said that while Hamzah’s response bore some truth, there were other indicators used in the TIP report that show up the country’s meagre attempts at overcoming trafficking.
“We have all these memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and protocols for anti-trafficking but there is no follow through,” Santiago told FMT.
He said there was sufficient evidence to bring those involved in human trafficking to court, but this was not being done.
“We need to hold these people accountable and send a message that the government doesn’t condone such acts,” he said.
Pereira pointed out that enforcement was just one aspect of reducing human trafficking, and an investigation into the root cause must be conducted.
“This can be achieved by setting up a royal commission of inquiry on the internal wrongdoing in various ministries involved in labour migration, enforcement and border control,” he said.
He said public servants needed to be vigilant against corruption that led to human trafficking, especially since many migrants in the recruitment process ended up as victims of trafficking.
On Tuesday, Hamzah told the Dewan Rakyat that the tier-based assessment used by the US State Department in its annual TIP report was based on its own law on human trafficking, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
The report released last month saw Malaysia remaining in Tier 3, the lowest rung, of the TIP report. Malaysia was placed on Tier 2 from 2018 to 2020 before dropping to Tier 3 last year.
Among others, it said the Malaysian government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and was not making significant efforts to do so.
It also said the government did not implement procedures to systematically identify trafficking victims, had weak inter-agency cooperation and did not prosecute or convict government officials allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes.
Hamzah said that while the government had acted against these negative aspects, “they are still not enough to influence the US State Department’s evaluation”.
Tenaganita executive director Glorene Das said there were inconsistencies in the outcomes of pursuing legal redress for trafficking victims.
“We also see how decision-makers continue to ignore the systemic weaknesses in the justice process that fail to hold perpetrators accountable,” she said.
She was referring to the TIP report’s remark that there was “uneven application of basic investigative and prosecutorial skills” across enforcement agencies and the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
“There is a fundamental misunderstanding among enforcement and prosecution agencies regarding what trafficking is despite having indicators,“ she said.
Das called for victim-centred approaches across all enforcement agencies as well as consistency in how human trafficking cases were investigated and prosecuted. - FMT
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