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[ Country-by-Country Reports ] MALAYSIA (TIER 3)
[Extracted from U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2009] Malaysia
is a destination and, to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for
women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual
exploitation and for men, women, and children trafficked for the purpose of
forced labor. Malaysia is mainly a destination country for men, women, and
children who migrate willingly from Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, the
People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines, Burma, Cambodia,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam for work – usually legal,
contractual labor – and are subsequently subjected to conditions of
involuntary servitude in the domestic, agricultural, food service,
construction, plantation, industrial, and fisheries sectors. Some foreign
women and girls are also victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Some
migrant workers are victimized by their employers, employment agents, or
traffickers who supply migrant laborers and victims of sex trafficking. Some
victims suffer conditions including physical and sexual abuse, forced drug
use, debt bondage, non-payment of wages, threats, confinement, and
withholding of travel documents to restrict their freedom of movement. Some
female migrants from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Burma, Mongolia, and the PRC are forced into prostitution after being lured
to Malaysia with promises of legitimate employment. Individual employment
agents, which are sometimes used as fronts for human trafficking, sold women
and girls into brothels, karaoke bars, or passed them to sex traffickers.
There were reports of Malaysians, specifically women and girls from
indigenous groups and rural areas, trafficked within the country for labor
and commercial sexual exploitation. Burmese migrants, including some Burmese
registered with the United Nations as refugees, a legal status not recognized
by the Malaysian government, are trafficked for forced labor. To a lesser
extent, some Malaysian women, primarily of Chinese ethnicity and from
indigenous groups and rural areas, are trafficked abroad to destinations
including Singapore, Hong Kong, France, and the United Kingdom, for
commercial sexual exploitation. There
were a number of credible reports of Malaysian immigration authorities’
involvement in the trafficking of Burmese refugees from immigration detention
centers to the Thai-Malaysian border. Several credible sources reported that
immigration officials sold refugees for approximately $200 per person to
traffickers operating along Thailand’s southern border. In turn, the
traffickers demanded ransom – ranging from $300 for children to $575
for adults – in exchange for their freedom. Informed sources estimated
20 percent of the victims were unable to pay the ransom, and were sold for
the purpose of labor and commercial sexual exploitation. The Malaysian and
Indonesian governments did not amend or replace a 2006 Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) between the two countries covering the employment of
Indonesian women as domestic servants in Malaysia. The MOU authorizes
Malaysian employers to confiscate and hold the passport of the domestic
employee throughout the term of employment. Although the MOU stated that
domestic workers should be paid directly and be given time off in lieu of
overtime, it remained common practice for employers to deposit wages with
recruiting agencies as repayment for debts. NGOs reported that many
Indonesian household workers were required to work 14 to 18 hours a day,
seven days a week. The
Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for
the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do
so, despite some progress in enforcing the country’s new
anti-trafficking law. While the government took initial actions under the
anti-trafficking law against sex trafficking, it has yet to fully address
trafficking in persons issues, particularly labor trafficking in Malaysia.
Credible allegations, including those released in an April 2009 formal report
by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of involvement of Malaysian
immigration officials in trafficking and extorting Burmese refugees
overshadowed initial steps by the Immigration Department to address human
trafficking. The Royal Malaysian Police is investigating the allegations with
the cooperation of the Immigration Department, as publicly confirmed by the
Prime Minister, but no officials were arrested, prosecuted, or convicted for
involvement in trafficking during the reporting period. The government did
not develop mechanisms to screen effectively victims of trafficking in vulnerable
groups. The government also continued to allow for the confiscation of
passports by employers of migrant workers – a common practice in
Malaysia. This practice is recognized by many in the international
anti-trafficking community as facilitating trafficking. The practice of
withholding the salaries of foreign domestic workers for three to six months
so the employer can recover the levy paid to hire the worker remained widely
practiced. As a regional economic leader approaching developed nation status,
Malaysia has the resources and government infrastructure to do more in
addressing trafficking in persons. Recommendations for Malaysia: Fully implement and enforce the comprehensive
anti-trafficking in persons law; increase the number of prosecutions, convictions,
and sentences for both sex and labor trafficking; adopt and disseminate
proactive procedures to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable
groups such as migrant workers and foreign women and children arrested for
prostitution; apply stringent criminal penalties to those involved in
fraudulent labor recruitment or exploitation o forced labor; ensure that
victims of trafficking are not threatened or otherwise punished for crimes
committed as a result of being trafficked; re-examine existing MOUs with
source countries to incorporate victim protection and revoke passport or
travel document confiscation; increase efforts to prosecute and convict
public officials who profit from or are involved in trafficking; expand the
training of law enforcement, immigration, prosecutors, and judges on the use
of the 2007 trafficking law; implement and support a comprehensive and
visible anti-trafficking awareness campaign directed at employers and clients
of the sex trade; and increase efforts to prosecute and convict public
officials who profit from, or are involved in trafficking, or who exploit
victims. Prosecution During
the reporting period, there were several NGO and media reports of groups of
foreign workers subjected to conditions of forced labor in Malaysia. In
August 2008, following an investigative news report, more than 1,000 foreign
workers at a Malaysian factory producing apparel for a U.S. company were
found subjected to squalid living conditions, confiscation of their
passports, withheld wages, and exploitative wage deductions –
conditions indicative of forced labor. Following its own investigation, the
U.S. company stated that it found major labor violations committed by the
local factory, though a Malaysian government official reportedly responded by
saying that the local factory’s management did not breach any labor
laws. Moreover, the Malaysian government did not respond with a criminal
investigation of the allegations. In
February 2009, a Malaysian newspaper revealed a case of 140 Bangladeshi
workers locked in a small apartment. The workers each reportedly paid
recruiters $5,000 to $13,000 to find them jobs in Malaysia; however, the
recruiters passed the workers to a Malaysian employment agency, which upon
their arrival in Malaysia, confiscated their passports and work permits and
did not pay their wages for three to six months in most cases, although some
individuals were not paid in more than a year. The Malaysian government is
investigating the case as a labor dispute rather than a human trafficking
case. In 2008, a local NGO coordinated with police in Sarawak to rescue 17
male Cambodians forced to work on commercial fishing boats and repatriated
them to Cambodia. The government did not prosecute any employers who
confiscated passports of migrant workers or confined them to the workplace.
Some employers who hired foreign migrant workers held the wages of their
employees in ‘escrow’ until completion of a contract. Protection Prevention |