KUALA LUMPUR: Ahead of its 2025 chairmanship, Malaysia must play its regional leadership role in Asean by ensuring the country and its counterparts within the union impose strong enforcement of anti-trafficking laws to combat transborder crime.
National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) vice-chairman Ragunath Kesavan said while Malaysia has adequate laws to address trafficking, enforcement remains insufficient.
Ragunath said the country needs to enforce the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom) 2007 more effectively and prosecute all perpetrators, including exploitative employers.
Despite the 2015 amendment to the act, he said enforcement remains insufficient and perpetrators, particularly employers, often evade trafficking charges even when they abuse their helpers.
"There is a gap between legislation and actual prosecution. Ensuring proper enforcement is crucial to protecting victims and upholding the intent of these robust laws," said Ragunath in an interview on the New Straits Time's Beyond The Headlines.
Separately, he stressed on the need for greater public awareness about what constitutes trafficking, especially among employers of foreign workers.
"The definition of being trafficked or human enslavement has actually been widened in the sense that if you are held in any form without access to a third party, even deprivation of a mobile phone, it can be considered trafficking," he said.
"If you bring the person into work, you don't provide accommodation, you don't provide salary, you don't pay wages and you keep them imprisoned then that's also trafficking," he added.
Additionally, Ragunath advised all Malaysians to stay in contact with their consulate or embassy when abroad, so the embassy can assist them if they encounter difficulties.
He also called for the International Transfer of Prisoners Act 2012 to include more countries, such as Nepal, to better protect citizens who are trafficked abroad.
This follows the case of Malaysian woman Mala Vello, who was trafficked in Nepal for 10 years and is now serving a seven-year jail sentence after failing to pay overstaying fines totaling RM88,500.
Mala is not recognised as a trafficking victim under Nepali law, as the Nepal Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act (HTTCA) only applies to Nepali citizens, not foreigners trafficked into Nepal.
In response, the Malaysian embassy in Nepal is working towards the safe repatriation of citizens who have overstayed in Nepal and yearning to return home.
Its charge d'affaires Mohd Firdaus Azman told the New Straits Times that this was in parallel with the embassy's effort to free domestic-servitude victim Mala Vello and another Malaysian exploitation victim from jail.