Malaysian News--KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia still has a long way to go before it can achieve Tier 1 in the United States Department of State's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.
Although Malaysia retained its Tier 2 ranking this year - the same as in 2024 - Universiti Malaya criminologist Dr Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid said many of the problems highlighted as far back as 2016 remained unresolved.
"They are still the same old recurring problems.
"For example, the conflation of trafficking and smuggling, the conflation of trafficking and migration," she told the New Straits Times.
Haezreena, who sits on the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Council (Mapo) Human Trafficking Advisory Group and works closely with victims, stressed that the biggest hurdle was proper identification.
"The enforcers are the first responders.
"They do not know how to identify who are victims and who are not because their understanding is not deep.
"The report also points this out," she said.
She said that requiring trafficked persons to self-identify - the current modus operandi - was flawed.
"That is very, very tricky and it can be wrong.
"From my experience interviewing victims since 2016, many do not self-identify.
"They may know they are being treated unfairly but would not call themselves victims," she said, adding that the term "victim" carried negative connotations of weakness that further deterred self-recognition.
Haezreena said that in many cases, individuals consent to migrate but are exploited only upon arrival, making trafficking harder to establish.
"At times, genuine victims are misclassified as criminals and subjected to the justice system rather than receiving the protection they need," she said, noting that the reverse also happened when smuggled migrants posed as victims to avoid punishment.
She said prosecutors and investigators were not sufficiently trained to understand the complexities of human trafficking.
"They may have allocated certain deputy public prosecutors, but they don't just do trafficking cases.
"They handle other cases as well," she said.
Haezreena said Malaysia needed specialised evidentiary laws to deal with trafficking cases.
"Getting the evidence is not easy because you have to prove the act, the means, and the purpose.
"Can they really prove that in court?" she asked.
She also said conviction rates should be more clearly broken down between guilty pleas and contested trials.
"If the convictions are mostly from guilty pleas, that's not a fair benchmark. Those who fight are usually people with resources and good lawyers," she said.
While she acknowledged that victim protection had improved since 2016, with shelters now more homely and allowances, limited outings, and video calls provided, she argued that Malaysia still infantilised victims by detaining them as prosecution witnesses.
"This is despite low conviction rates and the absence of trafficking visas," she said.
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