In response to press reports that the U.S. State Department will upgrade Malaysia on the 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, Melysa Sperber, Director of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) said:

“If Malaysia is upgraded from Tier 3, the United States will have sold out victims of human trafficking.

“Any decision to upgrade Malaysia in the Trafficking in Persons Report is purely political and incredibly detrimental to combating human trafficking in that country. An upgrade lacks all credibility and fails the basic laugh test...

...“Malaysia has forced labor in agriculture, construction, electronics, textiles and domestic service in homes, and was rightly given a Tier 3 ranking last year—a move we and other groups in the trafficking world supported. Now, in upgrading Malaysia, the State Department will show that it values trade over human rights, its own credibility, and the suffering of trafficked men, women, and children around the world.”