In today’s globalized world, Malaysia is not only a destination for children trafficking for sexual 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 children 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 children 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 children trafficking for sexual exploitation phenomenon in Malaysia and how it closely influenced by the border security issue. Moreover, this study investigates and discusses on four main factors derived from the literature that possibly contributed towards this issue which includes; syndicate, undocumented migrants, lack of parental control and awareness followed by the corruption. The study adopts a qualitative research method by using an in-depth interview to describe and understand the current situation of children trafficking for sexual exploitation 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, seven officers from five agencies were interviewed regarding their experience in dealing with children trafficking for sexual exploitation in Malaysia. The agencies involved were the Ministry of Home Affairs, Royal Malaysia Police and National Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM), United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and PERMATA under the advisory of Datin Seri Paduka Rosmah Mansor. The findings from the data collected revealed that trafficking in children for sexual exploitation is an emerging serious issue in Malaysia, fueled by border security elements and also influenced by the factors of syndicate, undocumented migrants, lack of parental control and awareness followed by the corruption. 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 children is a promise of future and children are subjected to be loved not violated or abused.
