Seeking to boost these numbers, the Southeast Asian nation launched a special trafficking court in March 2018 – in a bid to speed up the pace of justice and raise public awareness.

But official figures from the court’s registrar office showed that only 26 cases were cleared in the court’s first 15 months – with eight resulting in a conviction.

“What happened to all the promises?” asked Aegile Fernandez, an anti-trafficking campaigner and director at the Kuala Lumpur-based migrant rights group Tenaganita.

A judiciary spokeswoman declined to provide further details of the cases. It was not clear what punishments were meted out.

Law minister Liew Vui Keong and the attorney general’s Chambers, which oversees prosecutions, did not respond to questions about the court’s effectiveness or plans for the future. Liew’s press officer said justice takes time to obtain.

“Do you know when the court was set up? Do you want me to enlighten you how long a trial can go on?” Samantha Chong asked.

Why domestic workers are the modern-day slaves of Asia’s big cities

Comparatively, a court on sexual crimes against children set up in mid-2017 saw 367 cases cleared in the first year, the court website showed, without giving conviction numbers.

The US State Department’s 2019 Trafficking in Persons report gave Malaysia its second worst score for measures undertaken to fight human trafficking.

A downgrade to the lowest ranking can trigger US sanctions which Washington imposed on 21 nations in this year’s report.

The trafficking court was initially welcomed by activists concerned that most victims toiling in factories, selling sex or working as domestic staff, were foreign nationals reluctant to fight their case due to the time it takes and lack of support.

Malaysia’s low conviction record highlights gaps in its anti-trafficking law since an offence can only be proven if there was physical coercion, said human rights lawyer Edmund Bon from AmerBON Advocates, who is lobbying to change the law.

Due to the legal constraints, workers forced into excessive overtime or coerced to relinquish their passports are often treated as immigration or industrial dispute cases, and not heard in the special court, Bon added.

“That has to be amended because trafficking can be by way of emotional duress, it can be psychological,” said Bon, formerly a government-appointed human rights envoy. “There are a lot of people who get off prosecution because of the definition.”

Hong Kong urged to investigate local partners of illegal recruiters arrested in the Philippines

Malaysia relies on about 2 million registered migrant workers for jobs on plantations, in factories or construction.

But many others work without permits leaving them at the mercy of human traffickers to whom they owe money for transport to Malaysia where they were promised jobs.

Indonesia and Cambodia have in the past temporarily banned their citizens from going to work in Malaysia after cases of abuse surfaced but those bans have both been lifted.

“There are a lot of cases and it’s a big crime in Malaysia, but the very fact that we don’t identify these cases as trafficking is why we see a very low conviction rate,” said Fernandez of rights group Tenaganita. “We are asking: ‘why?’”