KUCHING: Malaysia is placed on Tier 2 Watch List with 444 certified victims in 2012 and 21 individuals convicted for trafficking in the latest report on ‘Trafficking in Persons Report (TPR) 2013’ released by the American State Department.
The nation is in the classification for a fourth consecutive year and only an assurance from the government that it had drawn up plans to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and has sufficient resources to implement the plan prevented it from being downgraded to Tiier 3.
Graded together with Malaysia under Tier 2 Watch List in the Asean Region are Thailand and Myanmar.
Under this grouping, the governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with the standards.
The report also alleged that the government made no tangible improvements to its inadequate system for identifying and protecting trafficking victims.
However, the report said the government had made modest overall progress in addressing human trafficking through law enforcement means.
“During 2012, the government convicted 11 sex trafficking offenders and 10 labour trafficking offenders, compared to the 17 sex trafficking convictions and zero labour trafficking convictions obtained in 2011,” the report said.
This grading riled Home Affairs Deputy Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar who said it was unfair to put Malaysia under Tier 2 Watch List as it did not reflect the nation’s genuine stance and stringent laws against human trafficking.
He said Malaysia had been adopting a humanitarian approach in dealing with illegal immigrants, which constitute the bulk of the so-called ‘human trafficking’ cases in the country
Wan Junaidi revealed that currently there are some 1.5 million illegal immigrants in the country.
“Malaysia is a major hub for people in this region to look for better prospects in life. Of course there are many who take advantage of our humanitarian approach and overstayed and this is a problem that we have to face.
“At the same time we cannot simply throw these people back to the sea otherwise we will be labelled us inhumane,” Wan Junaidi told The Borneo Post here yesterday.
He said the government had initiated dialogues with other countries in the region especially Asean countries to find solutions to the problems.
“We will continue to organise initiatives with other Asean members as most of our illegal immigrants are from these countries especially from Myanmar,” he said.
Wan Junaidi also revealed that one of the reasons for foreigners to enter Malaysia easily was because its borders were porous.
“While we have sufficient laws to curb human trafficking, it’s not easy to enforce it as in many cases it involved illegal immigrants who are forced to come here due to many unforeseen circumstances. For that reason our detention camps are now flooding with illegal immigrants including some 200,000 illegal Myanmarese,” he said.
Under Tier 1, are countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards. Most of the developed countries fall under this tier.
Tier 2 are countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. Most Asean countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam fall under this category.
Countries in Tier 3 are those whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.