In
today’s globalized world, Malaysia is not only a destination for women
trafficking activities, yet it is also being internationally recognized as a
source and transit country for numerous syndicates’ operation of the
transnational crime. In addition, trafficking in women is a tragic deprivation
of human rights mostly in the forms of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Due
to its clandestine and complex phenomenon in nature, it poses a great challenge
especially to detect the crime across borders which further complicates the
situation. Besides, a high demand for women in sexual industry has caused them
to be vulnerable and fall into the hand of greedy traffickers. Generally, the
Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (2007), becomes
the primary policy of the country and the establishment of Council for
Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (MAPO) as the main
coordinating body to navigate the direction for effective implementation of the
Act. Hence, this study attempts to explore the current level of seriousness of
women trafficking phenomenon in Malaysia and how it closely influenced by the
border security issue. Moreover, this study investigates and discusses on five
main factors derived from the literature that possibly contributed towards this
issue which includes; globalization, migration, profitable business, corruption
and law enforcement. The study adopts a qualitative research method by using an
in-depth interview to describe and understand the current situation of women
trafficking in Malaysia. The target population includes the government and
non-governmental agencies to generate deeper information about the discussed
issue. For the purpose of the study, six officers from three agencies were
interviewed regarding their experience in dealing with women trafficking in
Malaysia. The agencies involved were the Ministry of Home Affairs, Royal
Malaysia Police and National Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM). The findings
from the data collected revealed that trafficking in women is a serious issue
in Malaysia, fueled by border security elements and also influenced by the
factors of globalization, migration, profitable business, corruption and weak
law enforcement. The emerging key finding suggests that it is vital to
distinguished between trafficking and smuggling in person. This study
recommends that more awareness, capacity building and coordination in term of
policy formulation and enforcement are needed to combat this crime to the roots.
It is hoped that this study would contribute to the improvement and enhancement
of actions taken by various stakeholders as woman is not for sale.
