Nov 9, 2020 | Opinion Articles, RM
By Charles Santiago
APHR Chairperson
Malaysian Member of Parliament
Clearly, nation states and world superpowers are concerned about trade deals and huge profits as opposed to human suffering at the hands of traffickers due to failed government policies and initiatives.
If it’s at all true that the next annual human trafficking report by the US state department will move Malaysia up to Tier 2 to enable its participation in the Transpacific Partnership trade deal (TPPA), we can then conclude that US president Barack Obama is all about deceit than openness.
The Trafficking in Persons report is due next month and US senator Robert Menendez has already questioned whether the White House was putting inappropriate pressure on the state department to up Malaysia’s ranking.
The state department’s official website describes the Trafficking in Persons report as the US government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.
It further adds that the report is also the world’s most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-human trafficking efforts and reflects America’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights and law enforcement issues.
This is laughable.
Last year the state department placed Malaysia in Tier 3 because the government did not fully comply with the minimum standards to combat human trafficking and was not making significant efforts to do so.
In less than twelve months, the US is singing a different tune. And I am left wondering as to why.
The Anti-Trafficking Act 2007 was to strengthen the regulatory framework to deal more effectively with issues of human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. The government introduced a recent amendment to the act that allows for the employment of documented refuges and the setting up of a high level agency to manage anti-trafficking efforts.
It sounds pretty but we are yet to know how the government has moved to effectively implement the supposed framework.
All we have seen is a damning news report in a local newspaper at the end of last month, which said nation’s security personnel and law officers at Malaysian borders are corrupt.
The New Straits Times claimed that evidence of this systemic corruption is found in a “controversial report compiled by the Special Branch,” which is “the result of 10 years of covert, deep-cover surveillance and intelligence gathering by the Special Branch at the nation’s border checkpoints, and at different enforcement agencies throughout the country.”
The broadsheet daily also stated that the personnel of the enforcement agencies “were not only on the take, but many were on the payroll of syndicates dealing with drugs, weapons and even human smuggling.”
Before this report was out, we were shocked by headlines plastered on every major media organisation in the world that led with stories about mass graves and trafficking camps in Padang Besar.
Journalist wrote even more explosive reports, narrating eye-witness accounts of local villagers who said they had seen malnourished and diseased Rohingya refugees on the streets begging for food.
They had attended to these people and informed the police officers, who then took them away.
And yet the police say they knew nothing about the camps run by the traffickers until May this year, where 99 remains have been found so far.
Top cop Khalid Abu Bakar has also rubbished Tenaganita’s report that states trafficking camps have existed since 2008 or even before.
Despite this, the US is mulling moving Malaysia to the less-odious Tier 2 although Malaysia has not done anything at all to deserve the ranking.
It’s just like receiving a Nobel Peace Prize before proving one’s worth.
Nov 9, 2020 | RM, Statements
APHR Chairperson Charles Santiago sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday expressing concern over reports that political considerations might lead the State Department to upgrade the Tier designations of Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Myanmar in its upcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.
The letter was cosigned by U.S. Congressman Joseph Pitts, Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
Noting the recent discovery of mass graves along the Thailand-Malaysia border, along with the migrant and refugee crisis that consumed the region during the month of May, Santiago and Pitts argued that current conditions demonstrate that the plague of human trafficking continues in the region, and that an upgrade in Tier designations would therefore be premature.
They further argued that Myanmar should be downgraded to Tier 3 in the report, noting that the Myanmar government’s persecution of Rohingya Muslims, which lies at the root of the recent refugee crisis, has exacerbated the regional problem of human trafficking.
“Political considerations, whether related to the Trans-Pacific Partnership or otherwise, should not trump serious human rights concerns. ASEAN countries should be further engaged, encouraged, and supported in their efforts to combat human trafficking, not rewarded for half measures and, in some cases, even complicity,” the letter concluded.
Read the full letter here.
Nov 9, 2020 | BHR, Opinion Articles, RM
By Charles Santiago
APHR Chairperson
Malaysian Member of Parliament
It’s almost like every time our ministers or officials gloss over an issue, it comes back to haunt them. Case in point is the shocking discovery of mass graves in Padang Besar.
Everyone knows Malaysia is a destination of choice for the Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution and violence in their home country, Myanmar. And yet, Malaysia denied mass graves or camps set up by people traffickers were located here, when Thai authorities found similar mass graves in the Thailand-Malaysia border.
The Mingguan Malaysia reported that these graves were found in forests in mid-May and that the government kept it under wraps.
According to the law, Malaysia has a duty to protect and house victims of trafficking, who number in the tens of thousands. So maybe Malaysia’s denial is to shirk this responsibility.
This has to stop now.
The government must seriously look at the systemic reforms and strategies that must be put in place to curb the trafficking trade. And there must also be regional cooperation between the ASEAN member countries as well.
I call this a trade because millions are being made transporting human bodies, forcing them to fork out huge sums of money, bidding on them, selling them to the highest bidder, dumping them in the sex trade, or sealing their fate as bonded laborers.
In order to stop traffickers from preying on innocent victims, countries like Myanmar must stop targeted killings of Rohingya and instead give them protection. It must also allow them to work.
Other countries, like Bangladesh, must ensure jobs are made available and adequate measures are implemented to help the country’s poor live, with enough food, clothing, access to healthcare, and other basic necessities.
Once respective governments can look into these factors, their people will stop fleeing.
Then Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations must look at weeding out corruption amongst its officers in uniform, particularly immigration officials.
It’s an open secret that immigration officers are on the take from traffickers and even from fleeing refugees or desperate migrant workers.
It’s not just the Malaysian government. We, as a nation, must also shoulder the blame for those who would have died of starvation, terror, and in grief in these camps. For decades, we have allowed thousands of Rohingya refugees and migrant workers to cross the border into our country to work as cheap laborers.
We ourselves, or someone we know, would have had undocumented migrant workers as domestic help. And yes, they would have been only too happy to retain their passports and not allow these migrant workers to leave their homes.
So we, too, can do our part in curbing trafficking by not creating a demand for cheap, exploited workers or paperless domestic helpers.
Trafficking is an ugly trade that robs people off their dignity and right to live. It unleashes terror and unspeakable violence against these people, particularly women and children.
The discovery of the graves at Padang Besar and Wang Kelian clearly shows that trafficking is happening in our backyard. And many Malaysians are working this trade.
Instead of sweeping this issue under the carpet for fear of international outcry, the Malaysian government must look at durable ways to curb this dizzyingly complex industry, which has a strong network among all ten ASEAN countries.
