KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia has been upgraded to Tier 2 in the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report for 2024.
Tier 2 is for countries that have not fully met the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking but are making significant efforts to do so.
The report, released yesterday, states Putrajaya has demonstrated overall increasing efforts in 2023 compared with the previous reporting period. Malaysia was on the Tier 2 Watchlist in 2023, and on Tier 3, the lowest level, for 2022 and 2021.
These efforts included increasing the number of trafficking investigations, convicting more traffickers, increasing trafficking public awareness efforts, and prosecuting allegedly complicit officials,” the report said.
It also noted stiffer sentences handed down to convicted traffickers, as well as increased funding for victim shelters, and facilitating more freedom of movement for victims receiving services in government and NGO-run shelters.
However, Malaysia failed to meet minimum standards in some areas, including:
– formally identifying fewer confirmed trafficking victims,
– requiring victims to provide statements and participate in investigations and criminal proceedings to be formally identified as victims and to receive protective orders and trafficking-specific services,
– prosecution of fewer traffickers, with specific mention of labour traffickers in the palm oil sector and the disposable glove manufacturing sector,
– complicity and corruption by officials, which have undermined anti-trafficking efforts and allowed traffickers to operate with impunity,
– delays in prosecution,
– insufficient interagency coordination, and
– inadequate services for victims.
On inadequate services for victims, the report said this discouraged foreign victims from remaining in Malaysia to complete criminal proceedings against traffickers.
Besides recommendations to improve the above weaknesses, the TIP report said Malaysia should also do more in the following areas:
– expand efforts to inform migrant workers of their rights under Malaysian labour laws, including their right to access their passports at any time,
– include protections for foreign workers in contracts and bilateral agreements with labour source countries,
– eliminate recruitment or placement fees charged to workers by recruiters and ensure these are paid by employers instead, and
– increase efforts to identify trafficking victims from China in infrastructure projects affiliated with Chinese companies.
Malaysia’s Tier 3 ranking in 2021 and 2022 meant that it was not fully compliant and not making significant efforts to comply with minimum standards to prevent human trafficking. – June 25, 2024