The 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report, issued by the US State department, has downgraded Malaysia and Thailand to Tier 3 from Tier 2. This the lowest rank assigned to countries and shows they feel Malaysia is not doing enough to address the problem of human trafficking. In fact, their report stated that not enough was being done in any of the three key areas of trafficking – prosecution, protection, and prevention.
The Malaysian government said they were disappointed by this downgrade as they claim to have been doing quite a lot to combat human trafficking. They cited the changes in laws which allow certain foreign victims of trafficking to reside and work in Malaysia.
However the Human Rights Commission for Malaysia (Suhakam) urged the government to step up its efforts to tackle this problem. One problem area is the very low prosecution rate of traffickers and the lengthy periods many victims are kept in detention, and both these factors were apparently key in Malaysia being downgraded.
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