'Not enough done to curb human trafficking'

By Patrick Lee - Free Malaysia Today,

KUALA LUMPUR: Government officials may be congratulating themselves that Malaysia has moved up the US-based Trafficking in Persons watch list, but others are not as optimistic.
Aegile Fernandez, consultant and programme manager of Tenaganita, a local NGO, said that while there have been some government efforts to curb human trafficking, they were not enough.
“Little changes have been made, but not major ones,” Fernandez told FMT today in an interview. She also said the government did not go out of its way to work with local NGOs to combat this vice.
“The problem with Malaysia is that there is a lack of openness and transparency,” she said. “Countries that have multi-disciplinary approaches to the problem have been able to deal with human trafficking.”
While she admitted that a few sex traffickers have been charged, many others involved in other forms of trafficking have gone unpunished.
“For instance, not a single employer involved in labour trafficking was charged.”
She added that the government was focused on the sex trade but not on other types of human trafficking, such as migrant labourers, mail-order brides, baby factories and human organs.
Fernandez also said that missing children may be victims of trafficking.
She claimed that many enforcement agencies were not serious in tackling the problem, adding that they were not given enough training to handle it.
“We have filed cases (on human trafficking) in the last two years to the police and the Attorney-General's Chambers but to date, no investigation has been done.”
Detention camps
In recent years, Malaysia has enacted the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007, formulated a five-year National Action Plan Against Trafficking in Persons, and provided training for enforcement agencies.
However, Fernandez said trafficked persons were still classified as illegal immigrants. As a result, many were sent to detention camps where they would be deported, or in some cases were back in the arms of waiting traffickers.
Asked on the number of victims of trafficking in Malaysia, she said it could be in the millions.
She said that human trafficking was the world's second most prolific crime, next to illegal weapons trade.
She added that Malaysia had been part of the human trafficking scene as early as 1983.
On average, Tenaganita handles 15 to 20 different cases of human trafficking a month, involving 200 to 300 people.