For the second year in a row, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report has whitewashed Malaysia’s poor to mediocre record on combating human trafficking. The reality is that Malaysia officials identify very few victims compared to the numbers present in Malaysia, foreign workers from Southeast and South Asia are debt bonded and controlled, and the government’s efforts to shelter and care for victims is really sub-par, and marred by bureaucratic red-tape. Victim support is about commitment, resources, and training, but it’s not rocket science and there are plenty of best practices to learn from...

Malaysia has also made no effort to untangle wholly different concepts of ‘people smuggling’ from human trafficking in Malaysia’s anti-trafficking law, leaving front line officials with a buffet line choice of whether to designate a person as an illegal immigrant or a trafficking victim. Not surprisingly, effective identification of trafficking victims falters in all but the most obvious cases, and the Malaysian anti-trafficking efforts stumble at the first hurdle. Amendments to the law in 2015 to create an inter-agency committee are far from sufficient to deal with the larger problems the law creates...