Malaysia's human trafficking court draws flak after just eight convictions in first year
- Malaysia secured 140 human trafficking convictions between 2014 and 2018, despite launching more than 1,600 investigations and identifying almost 3,000 victims
- In response, Malaysia launched a special trafficking court in March 2018 but only 26 cases were cleared in the court’s first 15 months, with eight resulting in a conviction
Malaysia is home to an estimated 212,000 of about 40 million people trapped in slavery worldwide, according to the Global Slavery Index by human rights group Walk Free Foundation, and the government has vowed to act and amend labour laws.
What happened to all the promises?
Yet the Southeast Asian nation only secured 140 human trafficking convictions between 2014 and 2018, despite launching more than 1,600 investigations and identifying almost 3,000 victims, according to the US Trafficking in Persons reports.
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.