June 03, 2008 17:03 PM

Anti-Trafficking Law Rescues 33 Victims Of Human Trafficking

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 (Bernama) -- Thirty-three suspected victims of human trafficking were rescued by the Immigration Department since the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007 came into force in March 2008, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung said Tuesday.

Two of the victims were Thai women, aged 25 and 27, smuggled into the country by a Malaysian who had since been prosecuted, with the two women turning up as key witnesses, he said.

The remaining 31 people had been brought into the country illegally for other purposes, he told reporters after opening a workshop on the Bali Process on People Smuggling: Threat Assessment and Risk Analysis, here.

The Bali Process was initiated at the Regional Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and related Transnational Crime held in February 2002.

One of the significant problems was distinguishing between genuinely trafficked victims and those involved in so-called "self-trafficking" or "voluntary trafficking", he said.

Chor said human trafficking had become a transnational crime and statistics showed an alarming figure of 2.7 million people being trafficked worldwide annually, with 80 per cent of them being women and children.

He said action must be taken against those who were willing to pay for exploited labour to ensure that migrant workers were better protected.

Chor said there was no foolproof plan to combat human trafficking as agencies encountered a multitude of problems in the course of enforcement.

"Our enforcement and border control authorities also face difficulty in getting accurate information to respond swiftly to transit cases of human smuggling or trafficking," he said, adding that information and intelligence-sharing should be enhanced from time to time.

Chor said many foreign women who had been arrested or rescued from prostitution claimed to be victims of trafficking.

"However, further investigation revealed that many had entered the country on their own accord for economic gain," he said.

-- BERNAMA

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