Trafficking Versus Smuggling: Malaysia's Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act

Abstract

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Malaysian government has faced increasing pressure to improve its treatment of its large migrant population. To address international criticism and to improve the treatment of victims of trafficking, the government introduced an Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) Act in 2007, which was subsequently amended in 2010 to include crimes associated with migrant smuggling. The first section of this chapter traces the emergence of the Act, while the second documents and analyses national and international responses to it. The chapter argues that the Malaysian example offers important insights into the ways in which international pressure can be brought to bear on the drafting of national laws dealing with human trafficking and smuggling. It demonstrates that the geopolitics of regional border control is increasingly shaping Malaysian responses to its large migrant population. In particular, the distinction between smuggling and trafficking is becoming an important means for Malaysian authorities to strengthen border protection while, at the same time, paying lip service to international demands to address 'the most heinous of crimes'. In the absence of human rights laws that address the exploitation of migrants, these anti-trafficking and anti-migrant smuggling laws have done little to address the system-wide factors that create and sustain endemic abuse of the labour rights of temporary labour migrants.