G/TIP DIRECTOR MILLER URGES MALAYSIA TO PROTECT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KUALA LUMPUR 002160

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP AND G/TIP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/22/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KCRM KWMN MY
SUBJECT: G/TIP DIRECTOR MILLER URGES MALAYSIA TO PROTECT
TIP VICTIMS AND DRAFT LAW

REF: A. STATE 144327


B. KUALA LUMPUR 1661

C. KUALA LUMPUR 1804

D. KUALA LUMPUR 2035

Classified By: Ambassador Christopher J. LaFleur, reasons 1.4 (b and d)
.

Summary
--------------


1. (SBU) G/TIP Director John Miller's November 8-11 visit to
Malaysia focused on urging the GOM to pass comprehensive
anti-trafficking legislation, fund and establish victims'
shelters, and properly identify trafficking victims. While
the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP),Ministry of Women, Family
and Community Development (WFCD),and the Department of
Immigration called for a TIP law, Malaysia's Attorney General
remained skeptical about the need for new legislation.
Senior police and immigration officials recognized the need
to protect victims and described their efforts to provide
proper shelter. Malaysia, however, has not opened a
government-run victims' shelter, and the Women's Minister
remained unengaged. Miller called for Malaysia to fund
private shelters and highlighted the possible role of NGOs
and international organizations to help meet shelter needs.
Miller's visit served to remind the GOM of the priority the
U.S. places on combating trafficking and we are examining new
ways to build momentum. End Summary.

Urging GOM Actions
--------------


2. (SBU) Ambassador John R. Miller, G/TIP Director,
accompanied by G/TIP Senior Reports Coordinator Mark Taylor,
visited Kuala Lumpur November 8-11 to meet with government
and civic leaders to urge Malaysia to take actions against
human trafficking against the backdrop of Malaysia's
placement on the Tier 2 Watch List in the 2006 Trafficking in
Persons Report. Ambassador Miller encouraged senior cabinet
members to support, draft and enact a comprehensive
anti-trafficking law, open or support appropriate shelters
for trafficking victims, and institute proper screening
procedures to properly identify trafficking victims from
among the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens that enter
Malaysia every year.

Mixed support for a new law
--------------


3. (C) Despite previous and contemporaneous calls from the
Royal Malaysian Police (RMP),Ministry of Women, Family and
Community Development (WFCD),and the Ministry of Home
Affairs through its Immigration Department for the passage of
a comprehensive anti-trafficking law (reftels),Malaysia's
Attorney General (AG),Abdul Gani Patail, remained skeptical
and unconvinced that a new law was necessary. Twice during a
90 minute meeting with Amb. Miller, the AG declared that "we
are tired of this issue." Abdul Gani politely expressed
frustration with the pressure he felt the United States was
placing on his country to pass an anti-trafficking law, and
declared, "if we pass a law, it is just a process to raise
our status from Tier 3 to 2 to 1." He further opined that
"laws are meaningless if they are not enforced." Citing
Malaysia's Immigration Act, Penal Code and the Child Act of
2001, Abdul Gani declared Malaysia's laws "more or less
adequate" to address trafficking. Besides, he noted,
Malaysia was no longer charging foreign prostitutes with a
crime, nor were they charging women and children as visa
violators; they are now merely detained by immigration and
deported, he said. Despite the litany of statutes cited, the
AG admitted that most suspected traffickers, if identified,
are not charged under any of those laws but are detained
without trial under Malaysia's Restricted Residence Act.


4. (C) Subsequent meetings with the RMP, Immigration and
WFCD contradicted Abdul Gani's confidence in Malaysia's
current legal scheme to address trafficking. The RMP's new
Director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID),
Commissioner of Police Christopher Wan, expressed frustration
with the current piecemeal of laws used and could not provide
an example of a successful trafficking prosecution in the
last several years. Wan echoed the Inspector General's
previous calls for comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation
(ref B) and admitted that under the current scheme it was too
difficult for police to develop cases against anyone but the
most basic, wage-earning, brothel employees. According to
Wan, the real traffickers were not being captured and
certainly not being prosecuted. Likewise, Wan admitted,

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cases against employers who abuse their domestic servants
were equally rare, and even the most egregious of cases could
be tied up for years in the courts. (Comment: Senior police
officials we met with did not appear to understand the
definition of trafficking and often confused human smuggling,
illegal immigration and actual trafficking. This confusion
is exacerbated by the fact that there remains no legal
definition of trafficking in Malaysian law, and though the
police often refer to the definition described in the United
Nations Protocol, it is not well understood. End Comment.)


5. (SBU) Malaysia's Director of Immigration Enforcement,
Ishak Mohamed, took a softer stance than the RMP, but echoed
the call for more comprehensive legislation. Ishak opined
that current laws were sufficient for many trafficking
offenses, but acknowledged that more comprehensive laws were
necessary to properly identify and protect victims. Echoing
some of the Attorney General's remarks, Ishak admitted that
law enforcement officials from all branches were concerned
and confounded with how to identify actual victims from "all
the willing participants." Moreover, both Ishak and the
Attorney General recognized that the second greatest issue
was identifying with certainty the actual nationality of the
person in custody. Many of the possible victims are detained
without identification and determination of nationality can
often be difficult or prolonged. Ishak advised us that to
counter this problem, all persons detained are now
fingerprinted, and any subsequent arrests will immediately
identify their nation of origin and past history of
immigration violations.

Immigration Detention or Victims' Shelter?
--------------


6. (C) Ishak reported that the GoM has gazetted five
immigration detention facilities to be used as separate
detention centers for suspected trafficking victims.
Although none of these facilities are yet opened, the
intended purpose is to separate victims from illegal
immigrants. (In other meetings, both the Attorney General
and the Minister of WFCD referred to these future detention
facilities as victims' shelters. These are the same
facilities reported in ref A.) These detention facilities
are to be operated and staffed entirely by the Department of
Immigration. Ishak, however, doubted the wisdom in
establishing these facilities. He foresaw the difficulty in
separating and housing detainees in full sight of other
immigration violators and remained skeptical of the influence
this would have in promoting false reports of victimization
and creating a pull factor for those merely seeking to be
housed separately. As the AG described the situation,
because all victims are also in violation of immigration
laws, the law requires them to remain in the custody of
immigration officials until they are properly removed from
the country. The AG admitted that it was legally possible
for trafficking victims to be issued a visa and thus be
allowed to remain in Malaysia outside of immigration custody,
but Ishak informed us that Malaysia did not have any
applicable class of visa for that purpose. Ishak expressed
interest in America's "T" visa program, and opined that such
a program should be considered in any future anti-trafficking
legislation.

Women's Minister shows lack of focus
--------------


7. (C) During a dinner meeting with Ambassador Miller,
Women's Minister Shahrizat Jalil conveyed a personal and
institutional lack of focus on the issue of trafficking in
persons. Ambassador Miller used their meeting to remind
Minister Shahrizat of her December 2004 commitment to open a
victims' shelter and asked her of her progress in fulfilling
that pledge. Shahrizat lamented that she had not been able
to open the shelter as she had subsequently learned she did
not have the legal authority to operate it. The victims, she
explained, must necessarily remain in the custody of
immigration officials and current laws and budget structures
did not allow the facilities to be opened. When pressed on
the fact that the AG had commented earlier in the day that
there was no legal impediment to opening a shelter, Shahrizat
claimed the AG had told her otherwise. There was also no
money allocated for repairing and remodeling the first
shelter she had gazetted in the State of Selangor, just
outside of Kuala Lumpur. She remained convinced that absent
a new law, the government could not open any victims'
shelters.


8. (SBU) Miller encouraged Sharizat to consider alternatives
to opening a government-run shelter. He encouraged the

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Minister to consider funding private shelters such as those
operated by Tenaganita and the Woman's Aid Organization
(WAO). He also recommended she consider inviting the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) to come to
Malaysia and open or assist with a victims' shelter. It was
not necessary, Miller advised, for the GoM to run its own
shelters, if it were willing to support IOs or NGOs that were
capable of meeting the nation's needs.


9. (C) Minister Shahrizat spent the majority of the dinner
meeting criticizing senior American officials and expressing
her own critical opinions about American foreign policy and
the recent mid-term elections. After Ambassador Miller's
departure, Shahrizat called Ambassador LaFleur to apologize
for her harsh comments and for leading the conversation off
on such a tangent. Ambassador Miller followed up his visit
to Malaysia with a personal letter to Minister Shahrizat
encouraging her to visit some of the shelters he had seen and
to gain for herself a first-hand view of the victims that
present in her country.

Visiting Victims' Shelters
--------------


10. (SBU) The Indonesian embassy and NGOs Tenaganita and the
WAO welcomed Miller's visit and guided him on tours of their
shelters in the Kuala Lumpur area. The Indonesian Embassy
reported they housed up to 800 women per year in their
shelter in Kuala Lumpur with up to 200 resident at any given
time. Of the 800 women and children sheltered each year,
some 40 to 60 percent were victims of trafficking in one form
or another. Embassy officials reported that Indonesia's four
consulates in Malaysia also ran smaller shelters, each
housing between 60 and 100 women and children. They
estimated a similar percentage of trafficking victims at each
facility.


11. (SBU) The NGOs Tenaganita and WAO operate the only two
private shelters in Malaysia and each facility can house up
to 25 people at a time. WAO has operated a shelter for over
20 years, but the majority of their residents are not
trafficking victims but victims of domestic violence. Of the
fourteen women and eleven children in WAO's shelter during
Miller's visit, only one was identified as a trafficking
victim. WAO expressed a desire to focus more on women's
advocacy than shelter operations, but pledged to continue
campaigning for a comprehensive anti-trafficking act.


12. (SBU) Tenaganita operates the only shelter in the
country dedicated entirely to female trafficking victims.
Tenaganita opened their US Government-funded shelter in May
2006, and currently houses 24 victims from Indonesia,
Vietnam, Burma and Cambodia. The shelter previously housed
victims from Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia. Social
workers who operate the shelter reported to Miller that they
have excellent cooperation and assistance from the police,
but that unfortunately they are not able to take in all the
victims the police would like to place. Social workers
explained that police recently approached the shelter about
taking in fifteen more rescued women but the shelter could
not accommodate that many more victims. Police are
continually seeking shelter for victims rescued in other
areas of the country as well, but shelters are not available.
Tenaganita reported that those victims who cannot be placed
in a shelter at either Tenaganita, WAO or a cooperating
embassy, are placed in immigrati
on detention until they can be processed for deportation.


13. (SBU) Tenaganita expressed concern that their funding
would expire in January and requested Amb. Miller seek an
additional year's funding from PRM. Currently Tenaganita's
shelter is entirely funded by PRM through its implementing
partner IOM. Post will convey via septel Tenaganita's
request for continued funding.

Comment
--------------


14. (C) Ambassador Miller's mission in Malaysia focused the
GOM on key points in our recommended anti-trafficking Action
Plan. The RMP and the Immigration Department have taken
positions and actions which indicate strong support for new
TIP legislation, and foreign embassies and NGOs continue to
report police actions to rescue victims. Cabinet ministries,
however, have not demonstrated similar commitment or
interest. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to
our diplomatic note and follow up calls requesting assistance
in scheduling meetings for Ambassador Miller, including our
request for a meeting with MFA officials. Despite being

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appointed as the coordinating ministry for trafficking, the
Ministry of Internal Security (MIS) declined to meet with us
and referred us to the Ministry of Home Affairs and to the
Attorney General, whom MIS claimed "really have action on
this issue." The Women's Ministry, a natural advocate for
female victims, has not moved beyond rhetoric, including on
the key issue of sheltering victims. Ambassador Miller's
discussions reminded the GOM of the priority the United
States attaches to combating trafficking and our attention to
Malaysia as a destination country for trafficking victims.
We are examining new ways to build momentum following this
visit, including the programming of senior Justice Department
officials to further lobby for a TIP law, the initiation of
DOJ/ICITAP victim identification training for police, and
initiatives to increase public awareness of the plight of
trafficking victims.
LAFLEUR