NST Leader: Of human trafficking and syndicates
The question is how did the foreigners get into the country? Were they smuggled in? Not an impossibility given the ease with which human trafficking syndicates are able to recruit corrupt officers as facilitators.
A few — with dreams of driving Maseratis in Jimmy Choo shoes — even become members of syndicates. Move from Friday's news to that of a year or two earlier, it is the same old story. Put it down to the dystopian times we live in.
The rescue of the 10 minors and 53 women during the raid on a sex trafficking syndicate operating a spa and massage parlour in Johor Baru is a warning sign that there may be more of them in the spas and massage parlours throughout the country. Or at least in the sleazy parts of our cities.
While we applaud the brave efforts of the Immigration Department in rescuing the minors and foreign women, who appear to have fallen for false job offers, its Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Money Laundering Division needs to put its intelligence gathering on overdrive.
This, supported by robust enforcement, should be able to keep track of foreigners entering the country and whether or not they are here for the purpose they state in their immigration landing card.
History tells us that not all foreigners who travel to Malaysia are here for a visit. Some, like the 53 foreign women rescued in Johor, are victims of job scams. Some choose to overstay. Yet others are smuggled into the country. Robust enforcement is the keystone to free Malaysia of human trafficking for sex, labour or other forms of slavery.
Right now, our human trafficking record — in the eyes of the United States State Department, that is — is not something we would love to write home about, though we have been upgraded from 2023's Tier 2 Watch-List to Tier 2 last year.
The reason? Malaysia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, though it is making significant efforts to do so, the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report says.
Some of the reasons quoted for the upgrade are the increasing number of trafficking investigations, including of suspected labour trafficking; more traffickers being convicted, with the majority of them receiving significant sentences; increasing trafficking public awareness efforts, and prosecuting allegedly complicit officials.
More needs to be done, not by the Immigration Department alone, but by all authorities tasked with curbing human trafficking.
The Employment Act 1955 is a case in point. The Act criminalises forced labour practices by threats of intimidation, restriction of movement or fraud to induce labour or services. But how often do we hear of employers being hauled to court for such offences, despite the Labour Department having a trafficking enforcement team? From few to none.
Malaysia's ambition is to make the country free of human trafficking. But ambition needs action, and a coordinated one at that.
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