Child labour exploitation cases often received by shelter home in Rembau

PUTRAJAYA - Labour exploitation involving children aged 18 and below is among the highest category of cases received by the Rembau Shelter Home in Negeri Sembilan.

The home’s community development assistant officer Maisyarah Ismail said this year alone, they had received 16 cases of human trafficking and 12 of them were cases of forced child labour.

Of the 12 cases, 11 involved foreigners - mostly Rohingya - and one Malaysian aged between 16 and 17, with most of the cases from Selangor, he said.

"It (child labour) is quite serious. It also involves security factors because they have to work in other countries due to problems in their home country," she said when met by Bernama at the 2023 International Symposium on Human Trafficking here today.

In Malaysia, there are two shelters for child trafficking victims, one in Rembau for girls that can house 30 victims at a time, and another in Bukit Senyum, Johor, for boys.

Maisyarah said the shelter home offers services such as counseling, basic classes for reading, writing and counting, religion and moral education classes, as well as handicraft making.

"We will receive cases from law enforcement agencies such as the police and the labour department (Labour Department of Peninsular Malaysia) and the victims will be placed in a shelter for 21 days under a temporary order and then it will depend on the court case and so on.

"Among the challenges we face is the communication barrier with foreign victims, but later, they are usually able to blend in with the others," she said.

Meanwhile, the deputy secretary-general (policy and control) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Dr Abdul Gapar Abu Bakar, when met after the symposium, said that cross-agency cooperation for human trafficking cases needed to be improved.

"It will indirectly facilitate the process of identifying victims of human trafficking by law enforcement agencies and they can be rescued faster and the prosecution in court can be carried out properly," he said.

He said it could also help Malaysia improve its position in the US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.

The latest report released on June 15 saw Malaysia make it to the Tier 2 watchlist after being in Tier 3 for 2021 and 2022.

The last time Malaysia reached Tier 2 was in 2017, and remained there until 2020.

Tier 2 watchlist countries are those whose governments have not fully complied with the minimum standards of anti-trafficking in persons, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. - BERNAMA