SUBJECT: ECONOMICSUBJECT CODE: MPU3333TOPIC: HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN MALAYSIA

NAME STUDENT ID

TAN LI LING 13038138

SOH KIT MAY 13039342

TEO WEI XIAN 13035886

TEW CHAU HUI 13032305

Table of Contents

1.0 Executive Summary...........................................................................................................................3

2.0 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................4

3.0 Literature Review...............................................................................................................................5

3.0.1 What is human trafficking?........................................................................................................5

3.0.2 Causes of human trafficking......................................................................................................6

3.0.3 Operation of human trafficking..................................................................................................7

3.0.4 Comparisons using statistics.....................................................................................................9

3.0.5 Impacting the market for human trafficking...........................................................................15

4.0 Conclusion and Recommendation.................................................................................................17

5.0 Reference List...................................................................................................................................19

1.0 Executive Summary

This report briefs the readers on human trafficking phenomenon currently

happening worldwide. In the first part of the report, it contains the definition by United

Nation, types, causes and methodologies of human trafficking used by the traffickers.

Besides that, a few statistics on human trafficking is also found in the report be it

by gender, age or region. Impact on the economy arising from human trafficking

activities are also included as part of the report.

In overall, it can be concluded that Malaysian Government should reinforce and

tighten Malaysian laws relating to human trafficking. With the 5 international NGOs

playing their role in helping Malaysia eradicate this phenomenon, Malaysia should be

able to reduce the frequency of human trafficking. Education and campaigns are also

ways for mitigating this phenomenon.

2.0 Introduction

Malaysia is said to be a popular destination amongst migrant workers for

economic reasons i.e, to seek employment opportunities or as a transit country. That is

why these vulnerable and powerless group of minorities is often targeted to becoming

victims of sexual and labour trafficking. The term “human trafficking” is thereby used to

describe a type of human slavery whereby victims are forced into labor or sex industries

both within the country and international borders.

The purpose of this report is to discuss the contributors of human trafficking

activities both locally and internationally, the brief operations of the activities, comparing

the statistics in Malaysia and other countries, impacting the market of human trafficking

on economy as well as some recommendations to minimize the happenings in

Malaysia.

3.0 Literature Review

3.0.1 What is human trafficking?

Human trafficking can be said as an organized criminal activity normally by a

group of illegal corporations in which human being unconsciously fall into their trap are

treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited (GRAMEGNA, 2003 ).

Human trafficking can be categorized into forced labour, sexual exploitation,

organ removal, forced marriage and illicit adoption which involves the illegal selling and

buying of children or baby between parents and buyers.

The nature of human trafficking varies from region to region (SC, 2014). Human

trafficking includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking which are both commonly

known, and the crime can affect men and women as well as children. In Malaysia,

Malaysians from rural and indigenous communities tend to be more vulnerable to

trafficking (Anon., 2001-2006).

3.0.2 Causes of human trafficking

So, why does human trafficking occur? There are various factors that contributed

to human trafficking in Malaysia. Malaysia has wide range of lower class job opportunity

and the economic stability of the country itself attracts the entry foreign workers from the

underdeveloped countries. We have to admit that in Malaysia there are lots of female

housemaid originated from countries which are much lower ranking compared to

Malaysia such as from Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines and many more who are

forced into prostitution. These minorities are susceptible to human trafficking because

upon their arrival to Malaysia they were given false promises with good paying jobs but

is not the case in reality (Mohd Na’eim Ajis, 2010).

Poverty is one of the major factor which has increased women and children

vulnerability to human traffickers. The poor usually suffer in complex financial

constraints, and this makes them willing to place themselves in any kind of job even

migrate overseas to seek for work without investigating in more detail what will their job

be. This is because their ultimate purpose of finding job is to earn as much money as

possible in a short period of time in order to survive.

In addition to poverty, lack of access to education and knowledge on human

trafficking issue is also another factor. Although in Malaysia, many government and

non-governmental bodies often stressed on the issue of human trafficking by giving

campaigns, but we tend to be ignorant on the seriousness on this issue. Without the

awareness on the issue, we do not know how to protect ourselves and eventually fall in

the trap of human traffickers.

3.0.3 Operation of human trafficking

In order to combat human trafficking, the essential question that has to be asked

will be how victims are trafficked. The process of human trafficking can be broken down

into three phases namely recruitment, transportation and transfer, and receipt of person.

The first stage will be recruitment of people. At this stage, the traffickers will not

only recruit the victims but they will also gain control over the victims. The traffickers will

employ three means namely fraud, force and coercion. These means work together and

have been ingrained to form part of the legal definition as to what amounted to human

trafficking.

Fraud is where the traffickers often lure people into believing that there are

employments with higher wages and better working conditions elsewhere. People who

are facing financial difficulties or seeking for employment will easily take such bait.

Unbeknownst to them, upon reaching the destination, the working condition may not be

as well as promised or the scope of employment is totally different from what has been

promised. An example will be where the traffickers promised the individual that there will

be a well-paid job in a factory where in actual fact the individual will find himself being

manipulated into becoming a forced labour (Edmons , 2011).

In addition to that, the traffickers may also approach families that are not well-off

and offer to send their children to another loving family who will ensure the children will

have a better living environment and better education.

Traffickers may also defraud the individuals through a practice known as debt

bondage. These traffickers may charge the victims fees for food, shelter, transportation,

and other contingent fees in exchange for their service. Some may have to pay it off via

prostitution or forced labour. However, the victims may not realize that regardless of

how much they work, the amount that they owed will not decrease as the traffickers may

have charged them interest and may also imposed penalties or fines for failing to reach

the daily working quotas. Hence, they will always be bound by the debt (Suhana Saad,

2014)

In order to retain control and to ensure the victims to succumb to their will, the

traffickers may use force or physical violence. Physical violence will include rape,

physical abuse or beatings, administrating drug and depriving the victim from food and

sleep. The traffickers will use this method to condition the victims into believing that their

lives will be endangered if they try to escape.

Some traffickers may resort to coercion which is a powerful tool to keep the

victims from disobeying them. Traffickers may threaten to use violence on the victims or

may even threaten them using the livelihood of their family. This will keep the victims in

line and they will not escape. They may also hold the victims’ travel documents in order

to prevent the victims from escaping.

The second stage will be transportation and transfer of the victims to the said

destination. Although the word ‘trafficking’ may have implied that the victims are to be

transported across the borders or country, but in actual fact it may not be that case as

the victims need not be taken elsewhere in order for it to amount to human trafficking.

The last stage will be receipt of such person in exchange for monetary value or other

considerations.

3.0.4 Comparisons using statistics

Every year, The United States State Department will issue The Trafficking In

Persons report (TIP) and countries in all region including Malaysia had been ranked

based upon the level of compliance with the minimum standard required in Trafficking

Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).

The standard comprises of 3 tiers. Tier 1 refers to full compliance with the TVPA.

Tier 2 and tier 2 watch list refers to significant efforts have been made to comply with

the minimum standard. Lastly, level three is where there are no such effort being made

to ensure compliance with the minimum standard required.

Based on table 1 and 2, which is the analysis from 2001 to 2015, Malaysia has

been blacklisted to Tier 3 4 times which is in 2001, 2007, 2009 and 2014.

Based on reports in 2014, Malaysia has been placed at Tier 3 alongside with

other countries which is known to have weak humanity rights protection such as Saudi

Table 1: Malaysia tier ranking in 2001-2009

Table 2: Malaysia tier ranking in 2008-2015

Arabia, Zimbabwe, Iran and other 19 countries by the US State Department for failure to

improve its flawed victim protection regime.

The report also states that there is an estimate of 80,000 Filipino Muslims without

legal status, including 10,000 children, reside in Sabah. Among these group of people,

some are vulnerable to trafficking. There are also insignificant number of Malaysian

citizens subjected to trafficking internally and have been transport to sex trafficking in

France, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom.

In addition, the government reported 186 investigations of potential trafficking

cases in 2014, compared with 89 in 2013, which is a huge increase of 109%. It initiated

prosecutions against 54 alleged trafficking offenders (including 26 for forced labor, 12

for sexual exploitation, and an unknown charge for 16 cases), an increase of 59% from

34 in 2013.

Furthermore, in 2014 the government has identified 1,684 potential victims, of

which it confirmed 303 as trafficking victims, an increase of 12% compared with 270 in

2013. The majority of the victims were Indonesian nationals, followed by Vietnamese

and Filipino citizens. The number of victims subjected to sex or labor trafficking was

unclear. NGOs and government officials reported that labour trafficking was far more

common than sex trafficking in Malaysia.

In recent updates, which is the 2015 TIP report issued in July this year, the US

State Department has upgraded Malaysia to Tier 2 Watch List. This decision has

subjected to several criticisms and out lashes by some US lawmakers and human rights

advocates who opined that Malaysia shouldn’t be upgraded to Tier 2 and should

remained in Level three for its slow progress in convicting the traffickers and alleged

that the reason for upgrading is for trade reasons but such arguments have been

watered down by John Kirby, the State Department’s spokesman (U.S. Department of

State, 2015).

Looking at the worldwide perspective, based on statistics, research done shown

that an approximate number of 20.9 million people were exploited. (Anon., 2012),

involving in forced labour, i.e. sexual exploitations, forced labour or services and etc

(WUILING, n.d.). Out of the 20.9 million people, 90% of them (approx. 18.7 million) were

exploited in the private economy.

As shown above, 10% (2.2 million) of the labourers were forced by the state

(public economy), whereas the remaining 90% were exploited by the private economy in

the form of sex (prostitution) and labour.

Another research of forced labour done by the International Labour Organisation

is that by gender and age.

Chart 1: Detail breakdown of labour exploitation worldwide (Anon., 2012)

Chart 2: Breakdown of labour exploitation by gender worldwide (Anon., 2012)

Generally, women and girls represent a larger portion than men and boys. In

total, 55% (11.4 million) of the victims were female compared to male of 45% (9.5

million). On the other hand, children (under the age of 18) were less involved in human

trafficking compared to adults (aged 18 and above) in the research done, which is in

total 26% (5.5 million) against 74% (15.4 million) (Anon., 2012).

Based on chart 4, Asia-Pacific region contributed most to the total number of

forced labour, which is 56% (11.7 million), followed by Africa of 18% (3.7 million). The

next 3 regions had numbers quite close to one another, which is Latin America and the

Carribean of 9% (1.8 million), Central and Southeastern-Europe and the

Commonwealth of Independent States of 7% (1.6 million), and Developed Economies

and European Union of 7% (1.5 million). Lastly, Middle East contributed the least to the

total number of forced labour by 3% (0.6 million victims) (Anon., 2012).

The main reason that the Asia-Pacific region had the most victims was due to the

fact the region consisted of countries with huge populations for example China and

India.

Chart 4: Breakdown of forced labour by region (Anon., 2012)

Malaysia, being in the Tier 2 Watch List category in the 2015 TIP Report, also

had a serious issue with human trafficking. A substantial portion of the victims are

amongst the approximated two million documented and more than two million

undocumented foreign labourers currently working in Malaysia (Anon., 2015).

As of 1997, these "alien workers" totaled up to 1.2 million, amounting to an

estimation of 6% of the population and around 8.5% of Malaysia's labour force during

that time. Out of 1.2million, 500,000 to 700,000 are illegal labourers (Kassim, 1997).

Statistics had shown that there were an approximated presence of 614,848 non-

Malaysians trafficked into the boundaries of East and West Malaysia, notwithstanding

that there were more than 500,000 illegal labourers trafficked into Malaysia in 2000

(Ahmad Shah Pakeer Mohamed, 2011).

3.0.5 Impacting the market for human trafficking

The entry of illegal labourers via the human trafficking activity is not the main

disadvantage (Hamzah Abdul-Rahmana, 2012). However, the primary drawback is that

Malaysians employers would be overly dependent on the 'alien workers' and causes

less demand for local work labour in the market (Ahmad Shah Pakeer Mohamed, 2011,

p. 174). Since they are the illegal immigrants, it is obvious that the employers will not

have to provide them the statutory employee’s welfare benefits and they are willing to

work with a lower wage rate as compared to the local workers. This can then reduce

labour cost to the company.

Therefore, by reducing the demand for trafficked humans means decreasing

benefits to employers of employing trafficked labour. If information is used to educate

consumers about the horrors trafficked individuals’ face, consumer boycotts of certain

products and services can be used to decrease benefits to employers (Elizabeth M.

Wheaton, 2010). This is because if this continues to happen, it will affect the political

and economic aspect as the unemployment rate in Malaysia will increase significantly.

As a result, Malaysia’s income per capita will not meet the high income threshold which

will then causes Malaysia to remain as an upper middle income nation, instead of

becoming a high income nation by year 2020, under the Economic Transformation

Program.

Smuggling activity is seen to be a threat to the Malaysian economy because the

government may has huge reduction of the total collection of tax which can be of good

use for the development of the country (Ahmad Shah Pakeer Mohamed, 2011, p. 175).

Human trafficking is an illegal activity operated by some illegal and unregistered

organizations which will not pay income taxes to the government and thereby, without

the sufficient fund, the government will not be able to provide a better public facilities

and in maintaining the popular tourism areas. In addition, the economy of Malaysia will

not expand as government has insufficient fund to spend in order to boost the economy.

If human trafficking activities continues, foreign investors may withdraw their

investments for better investment opportunities.

4.0 Conclusion and Recommendation

The Malaysian Government can revise the current human trafficking act by

implementing a stricter punishment on person who is found guilty in conducting human

trafficking activities. For example, the amount of fine payable can be increased while the

period of imprisonment can be lengthen. This would definitely help to create a greater

fear among the people.

Next, currently there are five non-governmental organizations (NGO) namely the

NCWO, Council of Child Welfare, IKMAS, SUHAKAM and CAMSA being appointed to

the Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons and MAPO to eradicate the human trafficking

in Malaysia. In order to enhance the effectiveness of the campaigns, the government

can set up a fund for the MAPO to help them in organizing better campaigns. The

awareness campaigns can be held during the weekends and public holidays in places

that are frequently visited by the public.

In addition, education also plays an important role. The Education Ministry of

Malaysia can include human trafficking as part of the Moral subject syllabus in order to

allow the younger generation to be exposed to the critical issues faced by the country.

As they learn about human trafficking and the negative impacts in their young age, they

will eventually prevent themselves from falling into the trap of traffickers or supporting

those activities in future.

Nowadays, social network is a very strong platform for sharing information.

Conveying a message through these networks will be one of the fastest way to spread it

globally. The Malaysia Government can create accounts in the Facebook, Twitter and

Youtube to gather people all over the world to combat the human trafficking. Authorized

personnel is to upload relevant news, videos and reports related to human trafficking.

In conclusion, the human trafficking issues is not just some sort of humanities

issue but is a vile and heinous crime, it is the scourge of the mankind, and a gross

abuse of human rights (bad3maggie, 2011). The volume of trafficking activities taking

place in the country is so widespread and we should never ignore them. Therefore, this

issue will only be minimized if the public have the knowledge about the seriousness of it

so that they can be more aware and the emphasis and direct assistance whether from

either the government or non-government organizations in terms of moral and financial

perspective.

5.0 Reference List

Ahmad Shah Pakeer Mohamed, S. H. H. S. M. F. O. M. A. C. J. Y. H. H., 2011. The Phenomenon of Human Trafficking Activities in Southeast Asia. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(Special), p. 10.

Anon., 2001-2006. Humantrafficking.org. [Online] Available at: http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/malaysia

Anon., 2012. ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour. In: Results and methodology. Switzerland: s.n., pp. 1-48.

Anon., 2015. OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, s.l.: US Department of State.

Anon., 2015. Over two million legal foreign workers in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Malay Mail Online.

bad3maggie, 2011. Bad3maggie's Blog. [Online] Available at: https://bad3maggie.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/conclusion-of-research-paper-human-trafficking/[Accessed 8 August 2015].

Edmons , M., 2011. How Human Trafficking Works. [Online] Available at: http://people.howstuffworks.com/human-trafficking2.htm[Accessed 8 July 2015].

Elizabeth M. Wheaton, E. J. S. a. T. V. G., 2010. Economics of Human Trafficking. Journal Compilation, 48(4), pp. 114-141.

GRAMEGNA, F. L. A. M. A., 2003 . Developing Better Indicators of Human Trafficking. Brown Journal of World Affairs, VOLUME X(ISSUE 1), pp. 179-194.

Hamzah Abdul-Rahmana, C. W. L. C. W. S. F. L., 2012. Negative impact induced by foreign workers: Evidence in Malaysian construction sector. Habitat International , Volume 36, pp. 433-443.

Kassim, A., 1997. Illegal alien labour in Malaysia: Its influx, utilization, and ramifications. Indonesia and the Malay World, 25(71), pp. 50-81.

Mohd Na’eim Ajis, M. N. S. A. I. O. F. v. F. M. S. S. M. F. K., 2010. Managing Foreign Workers in Southeast Asian. Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 1(3), pp. 481-505.

Riley, L., 2013. Human Trafficking: Global Threat to Fundamental Human Rights. [Online] Available at: http://www.globalpeaceconvention.org/component/content/article/47-global-peace-convention/238-human-trafficking-global-threat-to-fundamental-human-rights.html[Accessed 8 August 2015].

Saad, S., 2014. GEOGRAFIA OnlineTM Malaysian Journal of Society and Space. Government policy and the challenge of eradicating human trafficking , 10(6), pp. 66-74.

Saad, S. & Salman , A., 2014. Government policy and the challenge of eradicating human trafficking. GEOGRAFIA OnlineTM Malaysian Journal of Society and Space 10 issue 6 (66 - 74), 10(6), pp. 66-74.

SC, F. M., 2014. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND MODERN DAY SLAVERY – AN AFFRONT TO HUMAN DIGNITY. GRIFFITH JOURNAL OF LAW & HUMAN DIGNITY, 2(1)(Special Issue), pp. 144-173.

Suhana Saad, A. S., 2014. Government policy and the challenge of eradicating human trafficking. Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, Issue 6, p. 9.

U.S. Department of State, 2015. 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report, s.l.: s.n.

WUILING, C., n.d. Assessing Criminal Justice and Human Rights Models in the Fight against Sex Trafficking: A Case Study of the ASEAN Region. Essex Human Rights Review, 3(1), pp. 46-63.

Yong, P., 2011. Timeline of Human Trafficking. [Online] Available at: http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~yongpatr/425/final/timeline.htm[Accessed 8 August 2015].