In Malaysia, some immigration officials have been accused of involvement in selling refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, to gangs in Thailand.
The Attorney General’s office in Malaysia says 10 immigration officers are being investigated after the US State Department placed Malaysia on its list of the worlds worst human trafficking offenders last month.
Karen Zusman, an independent journalist, recently returned from Malaysia, where she reported on the plight of the Burmese refugees.
Malaysia is a destination and, to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and for men, women, and children trafficked for the purpose of forced labor. Malaysia is mainly a destination country for men, women, and children who migrate willingly from Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam for work – usually legal, contractual labor – and are subsequently subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in the domestic, agricultural, food service, construction, plantation, industrial, and fisheries sectors. Some foreign women and girls are also victims of commercial sexual exploitation. – U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009
You can read the full report on Human Trafficking in Malaysia here.
Elaine Pearson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the status of the Myanmar refugees in Malaysia and the problem of human trafficking in Asia.