Last Thursday, the US State Department released its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2021. The report evaluates a nation’s compliance with the standards as detailed in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 2000.
Each country is then categorised into one of the four tiers: (1) Tier 1, nations whose governments fulfil the minimum standards under the TVPA 2000; (2) Tier 2, nations whose governments do not fulfil those minimum standards but are making significant efforts to do so; (3) Tier 2 Watch List, the same as Tier 2 but with either a significantly high/increasing number of estimated trafficking victims or a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of human trafficking; (4) Tier 3, nations whose governments do not fulfil the minimum standards under the TVPA 2000 and are not putting significant effort to do so.
In the report, Malaysia has been downgraded from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3. One of the main reasons for the downgrade was that while the government has made some effort in 2020 to address trafficking issues raised that year, these efforts were ultimately hindered by, inter alia, the lack of cooperation between official agencies, inadequate avenues for victims to turn to for help, corruption, and the government’s continuous error of conflating human trafficking and migrant smuggling.
The Malaysian government has since responded to the report, promising to review recruitment fee agreements and levies as well as its memorandums of understanding with other countries to identify elements that would pose a risk of labour exploitation.
The downgrade has drawn justifiable concern from various parties, many of whom are calling the government to be more proactive. The Bar Council released a press statement detailing a list of proposals the government may undertake to combat human trafficking. The Human Rights Commissions (SUHAKAM) is urging the government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to implement the recommendations made in the TIP report. Even foreign agencies are taking special notice—the British High Commission recently called for project proposals to address the modern slavery problem in Malaysia. Response from the corporate sector suggests the sector is treating the report more cautiously, wary that its findings could have elements of a smear campaign.
Regardless, this downgrade may not come as a surprise to those who have been following the news on labour issues in Malaysia—in the past year alone, three Malaysian-based companies were issued Withhold Release Orders (WRO) by the US Customs and Border Protection (USCBP). These WROs, which prohibit the companies to import their goods into the States, were in response to allegations of forced labour, some of which were concerns raised by NGOs.
