Hamzah said the tier-based assessment used by the US State Department in its annual TIP report was based on its own law on human trafficking, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
“Sometimes, there are differences in laws and practices between our country and the US in the context of three elements in evaluation – prosecution and enforcement, victim protection, and prevention,” he said while presenting Putrajaya’s response to the report in the Dewan Rakyat.
The report released last month saw Malaysia remain in Tier 3 of the US Trafficking In Persons report. Malaysia was placed on Tier 2 from 2018 to 2020 before dropping to Tier 3, the lowest tier, last year.
Among others, the report said the Malaysian government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and was not making significant efforts to do so, even considering the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country’s anti-trafficking capacity.
It also said the government did not implement SOPs to systematically identify trafficking victims, had weak inter-agency cooperation, and did not prosecute or convict government officials allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes.
Hamzah said that while the government had taken action against these negative aspects, “they are still not enough to influence the US State Department’s evaluation”.
He also refuted several claims in the report, key among them that the country had no safe houses against trafficking in the northern region.
He said Penang had a safe house run by an NGO that had been operating since 2017, and that there were 10 such safe houses around the country.
Eight of them were supervised by the women, family and community development ministry, and the remaining two were operated by NGOs. They received nearly RM10 million in government funding.
Hamzah also said the TIP report incorrectly stated that human trafficking victims in the country were handcuffed. He said handcuffs were only used on foreigners who broke immigration laws during enforcement operations in order to “save them from any unexpected situations”.
“Those who are identified as victims will not be handcuffed,” he said.
Tense debate
During the debate following Hamzah’s speech, M Kula Segaran (PH-Ipoh Barat) called for “more meaningful” action and better enforcement against human trafficking offences.
“There is only lip service and no meaningful action or follow-up (on the part of the ministry),” he said.
Ngeh Khoo Ham (PH-Beruas) said the home and human resources ministries were culpable for Malaysia’s low ranking in the report as both took uncompromising stances on undocumented migrants, rather than helping them.
Mujahid Yusof Rawa (PH-Parit Buntar) cited corruption as the main reason behind the low ranking. He said the corrupt practices of officials in the relevant ministries and agencies allowed trafficking to occur unabated.
However, Larry Sng (PBM-Julau) defended the government and home ministry for Malaysia’s ranking, claiming that several sections of the TIP report, such as that on the palm oil industry, were based on outdated information.