PETALING JAYA: Malaysia will be among the least competitive nations for investors and highly skilled professionals if it does not solve its human trafficking problem, rights activists have warned.
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They said the government must be serious in working to improve the country’s ranking in the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report.
Malaysia has remained at Tier 3 in the latest report, which said the government had not fully met the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and was not making significant efforts to do so.
Migrant CARE country representative Alex Ong warned that the US would take the lead by reducing investments, economic collaboration and other forms of aid to Tier 3 countries.
“Fundamentally, the Davos club has minimised its investments in Malaysia, making it one of the least favoured countries to put in capital investments,” he said, referring to elite member nations of the World Economic Forum.
“It is important for Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and his administration to have a 100-day assessment of the performance of those in leadership roles who have not made progress in creating a conducive environment for migrant worker management.”
North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira said foreign investors would be frightened away if the situation persisted.
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“They will think it is risky to invest in Malaysia. They may end up getting their products ‘blocked’ due to forced labour issues. This disaster will cause the country a loss in GDP growth,” he said.
Pereira alleged that there was a lack of justice in Malaysia for victims of forced labour and said he was not surprised by the report’s findings.
However, he also said he did not think the Tier 3 ranking would deter migrant workers from coming to Malaysia.
“The government needs to be serious and have a clear recruitment process for workers,” he said. “It should not be too complicated and, at the same time, it should provide a solution to protect these groups from discrimination and provide them equal rights.”
Selangor Anti-Human Trafficking Council task force member Abdul Aziz Ismail said the government had no political will to resolving the human trafficking problem.
“Despite coming up with programmes to alleviate the problem, the government does not train people on the ground,” he said. “Instead of protecting migrants, the officials go after them rather than the perpetrators.”-FMT