From Redzanur Rahman
When Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim’s motion to debate the position of Malaysia in the US State Department’s recently released 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report was rejected by the Dewan Rakyat Speaker a few days ago, I was at a loss for words. His excuse is simply unacceptable. How can a matter of grave importance like this not be debated?
Malaysia has recently been downgraded from the Tier 2 Watchlist to Tier 3. In simple words, those listed under Tier 2 are countries “whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards”.
Tier 3 is worse; they are countries which fail to comply with minimum standards and also fail to make significant efforts to comply.
Malaysia has joined countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Papua New Guinea to be listed in Tier 3, definitely not something we can be proud of.
Victims of human trafficking are known to fall into forced labour, prostitution, restrictions of movement, contract violation, wage fraud, assault, threats of deportation, the imposition of significant debts, and passport retention.
Being listed in Tier 3 costs our already sluggish economy in many ways.
Last week, plantation industries and commodities minister Zuraida Kamaruddin was reported as saying that the national palm oil industry suffered a whopping loss of RM10.46 million in just five months of this year. This is because of uncollected oil palm fruit as a result of labour shortage.
It is also bad that our palm oil industry is heavily dependent on foreign labour. To be more specific, 75% of the workforce in the industry is composed of foreign labour.
To make matters worse, Indonesia has decided to place a temporary freeze on sending its citizens to work in Malaysia.
The palm oil and manufacturing industries in Malaysia rely a lot on foreign workers, especially from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Nepal, so even a temporary freeze can translate into millions of ringgit in losses in productivity and potential earnings.
It is time our authorities address the actual issues, especially the ones specifically mentioned in the report. We are already at a disadvantage from the US’ import bans of our palm oil and rubber gloves due to allegations of forced labour.
The authorities’ indifference towards finding real solutions will only slow down our economic recovery. Take the first step by debating this motion in the Dewan Rakyat. We should truly find an end to this problem now.
Redzanur Rahman is an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.