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Malaysia openly practises widespread torture and other ill-treatment by subjecting thousands of refugees, migrants and Malaysian citizens to judicial caning each year. This form of corporal punishment has nothing to do with Islamic law. Under international law, judicial corporal punishment such as caning constitutes torture or other ill-treatment, which are absolutely prohibited in all circumstances. As a member of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia should consider the regional consequences of caning migrants and refugees. To comply with international law, the Malaysian government must abolish judicial caning altogether.
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Posted in Press Statements, Reports
Tagged Abuse, Amnesty, Foreign Labour, Refugees, RELA
Found on: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/5026077/Up-to-27-million-trapped-in-slavery-worldwide
Up to 27 million people are modern-day slaves, and migrants fleeing violence in North Africa are among those most at risk of being exploited, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
Countries where migrants arrive should try to identify potential victims and protect them, rather than opting for immediate repatriation which often sends them back into the hands of human traffickers, US Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca said.
Tens of thousands of migrants are fleeing turmoil in North Africa, with many trying to reach Europe by boat, but the problem of slavery exists all over the world and India, Thailand and Malaysia are among the worst-affected countries.
The European Union has urged African border authorities to bolster controls to prevent human smugglers taking advantage of the situation.
But CdeBaca, who directs the US Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said it was more effective to fight slavery in the countries where the victims are exploited.
“You don’t fight trafficking on the borders, because people don’t yet know they are trafficking victims, it’s only when they get to where they are going that they are enslaved,” he said at a conference organised by the US embassy to the Vatican.
“People should be keeping an eye on where these refugees end up, what kind of jobs they are being put into and how they are being treated,” he said.
He estimated between 12.5 and 27 million people are trapped in slavery around the world, ranging from children forced to work as domestic servants or in sweatshops to women coerced into prostitution.
Speakers at the conference stressed the need for more cooperation between governments, companies and religious groups to prevent more people from falling victim to the slave trade.
“The criminal organisations that prey on men, women and children are highly organised and well connected from one part of the world to the other,” said Sister Estrella Castalone, who co-ordinates anti-trafficking group Talitha Kum.
“It is only through an equally well organised network that links the countries of origin to those of transit and destination, that we can prevent the weakest and the most vulnerable from becoming a human commodity.”
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility said it was pressing businesses to scrutinise their supply chains and ensure their labour contracts included clear language to prevent human trafficking.
- Reuters
Tan Tian Maw sits in an office on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, hands trembling in her lap, and describes how she was raped by two Malaysian policemen.
Her voice is soft and barely audible above the dragon boat drummer practising outside.
“She hasn’t had any trauma counselling,” her lawyer, Latheefa Koya, explains. “No one has really helped her.”
PICTURE GALLERY | Freedom beckons for refugees heading to Perth | Hope in short supply | Malaysia deal under pressure |
It is 10pm on a Friday and the Rohingyan refugee has agreed to tell her story for the first time.
She says she is not worried about the publicity: “I am in enough trouble already. There is nothing more they can do to me”. The Burmese mother of two says she was riding a friend’s motorbike in November last year when she was pulled over by two police officers who asked her for the bike’s licence.
When she couldn’t produce it, she says she was dragged into the patrol car where the pair took turns raping her.
Doctors confirmed an assault had taken place.
The UNHCR helped file a complaint with the Malaysian police, who initially claimed the rapists were fake police officers. They then said the patrol car was stolen.
Later, they conceded the pair were real officers but could not be identified and repeatedly questioned her about the ownership of the bike.
“No investigation has taken place,” Ms Koya says. “Nothing will happen. And this is not unusual. This is standard for refugees.
“There is a lot of police abuse, even with Malaysians but worse with refugees. We’re talking extortion, deaths in custody, shootings. They call it ‘extrajudicial killings’ because they’re not being killed as part of a death sentence. They are shot in the course of arrest or something like that.”
More than 94,000 refugees are registered with the UNHCR in Malaysia but unofficial figures put the number closer to 200,000, all spread out in the cities and the slums and living in constant fear of raids, abuse and imprisonment in one of the country’s 13 detention centres.
This is the flipside to the planned Australia-Malaysia refugee swap and the one that has attracted the international ire of human rights groups.
It is here – in a country that has refused to sign the UN convention guaranteeing refugee rights – that Australia plans to drop 800 asylum seekers who arrive on Australian shores in exchange for 4000 registered refugees over the next four years.
“All Australia is relying on is the fact that Malaysia has guaranteed they will be treated humanely,” says Renuka Balasubramaniam, one of a group of Malaysian lawyers who formed Lawyers for Liberty four months ago, working pro bono for refugee rights.
“All migrants and refugees in Malaysia, as long as they’re non-citizens, are susceptible to regular and frequent and persistent harassment by authorities on threat of arrest – and this is regular thing for all of them.
“Because of the susceptibility to harassment, arrest, detention, whipping and trafficking – in that order – these are the reasons it is a bad idea to send them here.
“I think it’s completely irresponsible. Totally irresponsible. You are supposed to be a responsible country.”
Her colleague, Eric Paulsen, leans back in his chair and says he can understand the populist politics behind it. “The idea is to send a very strong deterrent message, that if you come, this is what’s going to happen . . . we’re going to send you to one of the worst places for refugees in the world,” Mr Paulsen says.
“This is the huge big stick approach, ‘If you come this way, this is what’s going to happen’.”
So what’s in it for Malaysia?
“Just money,” Mr Paulsen says.
“It’s like ‘I don’t care if you give me rubbish, I’m just going to throw it on the heap with everything else . . . it’s not like I have to take care of them’.”
The next morning, in one of Kuala Lumpur’s poorest districts, Burmese refugee Patrick Sang Bawi Hnin walks towards a non-descript doorway which marks the hidden entrance to the Chin Refugee Centre, an underground help group set up by Chin refugees.
A group of men have been waiting for him. They say their Malaysian boss, for whom they had been working for two months, has refused to pay them. Because they are working illegally, they have no rights.
“There is not much we can do,” Mr Hnin says. “There is always exploitation.”
He pulls out his mobile phone, one of the cheapest handsets available: “See this? We never carry good phones.
“When the police stop us and demand money, they also take the phones. If we have bad phones, they don’t want them”.
The Chin ethnic minority make up the biggest proportion of refugees in Malaysia and are the most organised.
But if the 800 asylum seekers that Australia directs here are Afghans or Iraqis, as is likely to be the case, they won’t have the support network that comes with numbers.
“Malaysia is not a good country to be sending these people to,” Ms Balasubramaniam says.
“They might have guaranteed these people will be treated humanely but Malaysia has no qualms about giving those types of assurances.
“They give it all the time. Malaysia sits on the Human Rights Council, in spite of its track record. So what they say counts for nothing.”
At the UNHCR compound, near central Kuala Lumpur, staff say they have no idea what shape the Australia-Malaysian deal will take.
Not only has Malaysia not signed the UN convention guaranteeing refugees certain rights, they are not even recognised under domestic law.
So refugee processing is done by the UNHCR, who told _The West Australian _that they have not been consulted about the plan and assume the 800 asylum seekers sent from Australia would be dropped into the pool of 94,000 refugees living illegally in Malaysian cities after a “brief” period of detention for processing.
“This is why we are so incensed, ” Ms Balasubramaniam says.
On a daily basis women, children and men are detained for immigration purposes around the world. Immigration detention is extremely expensive, can harm the health and wellbeing of those detained and has been found to not be effective at deterring irregular migrants. Global research spanning two years, conducted by La Trobe University and the IDC, found cheaper alternatives that work effectively in the interests of government, communities and the individual.
IDC has just launched their first-ever handbook to prevent unnecessary and damaging immigration detention.
Read their media release here.
Read the handbook here.
KATHMANDU, March 15: As Malaysia, the most sought-after labor destination for Nepali migrant workers, prepares to lift a year-old ban on Bangladeshi laborers, Nepal fears losing job opportunities for thousands of its unemployed youths.
According to foreign employment agencies, the Malaysian government has already decided to lift the ban on Bangladeshi laborers, further shrinking job opportunities for Nepali workers.
“We have confirmed the news report about the Malaysian government´s new decision,” Kumud Khanal, general-secretary of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA), told Republica. “Only some procedures are left now for the Malaysian government´s recent decision to come into effect.”
Nepali foreign employment agencies say that Malaysia´s new decision comes as a jolt to thousands of unemployed Nepali youths, who are eying unskilled jobs in the construction and plantation sectors in Malaysia. “If our government does not swing right into action within a couple of weeks, the opportunities of Nepalis for working in Malaysia will certainly be devoured by Bangladeshi cheap labor,” Khanal stated.
The Malaysia government had announced a ban on Bangladeshi workers last year, canceling some 55,000 work visas, ostensibly to prevent unscrupulous Bangladeshi agents from duping foreign job seekers. The Bangladesh government had been trying to persuade Malaysia to revoke its decision.
“The Bangladesh government lobbied hard with the Malaysian government to scrap the ban on its workers. Even the Bangladeshi premier, Sheikh Hasina, met her Malaysian counterpart in person several times, asking Malaysia to allow her people to work in Malaysia,” Hansa Raj Wagle, vice-president of NAFEA, said. “However, our government pathetically failed to lobby for its people.”
In December, the outgoing labor minister, Mohammad Aftab Alam, had requested some Malaysian authorities to create an environment for Nepal to send workers to the construction and plantation sectors in Malaysia. However, a political void persisted for long in Nepal, leaving no competent authority here to lobby for Nepali migrants.
While Bangladeshi laborers were prohibited from working in Malaysia, the Nepal government did not allow its citizens to work at plantations and construction sites in Malaysia, citing low wages and insecurity. The basic salary scale of migrant workers in Malaysia is low. Despite the low salary scale, most migrant laborers working in other sectors earn more than 800 ringgit through overtime. However, migrant workers employed in the construction and plantation sectors have to be satisfied with their basic salaries as they cannot work overtime.
“As it rains frequently in Malaysia, migrant workers employed in the construction and plantation sectors cannot work overtime. They have to stay indoors at least one week every month. Besides, camps meant for plantation workers are set up close by forests and are not safe,” Khanal said. “Our workers cannot work there as long as these circumstances continue. The government could have created a more favorable atmosphere by lobbying with Malaysia. However, we failed to do so.”
Malaysia — where a majority of Nepali migrants are currently working — requires thousands of laborers in its plantation and construction sectors, especially as Indonesian laborers stopped seeking jobs there. In this new scenario, argue Nepali manpower agencies, Malaysia could have easily agreed to hike the basic salary scales and make the camps safe for Nepali workers had the government lobbied for it.
More than 30 percent of the total of 1.8 million migrant workers currently employed in Malaysia are in the plantation and construction sectors. Although Bangladeshi laborers work for low wages, Nepali workers, foreign employment agencies argue, have some other merits of their own. “They are honest, disciplined and quick to learn new skills,” Wagle said. “The government should cash in on our workers´ exemplary merits while lobbying for better salaries and safer camps.”
Link: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=29229
Posted in Articles
Amnesty International says that caning has hit epidemic proportions in Malaysia, where the beatings are administered with a long stick that leaves permanent physical and mental scars.
Rights groups were outraged after it emerged that the government said in a statement to parliament last week that a total of 29,759 foreign workers were caned between 2005 and 2010 for various immigration offences.
“Judicial caning is a form of torture and ill-treatment against human beings because it causes physical suffering, psychological problems and constant trauma,” Andika Abdul Wahab from rights watchdog Suaram said in a statement.
“This form of barbaric solution is prohibited” by international law, he added.
Suaram said the foreign workers were usually picked up during large-scale crackdowns on illegal migrants. Malaysia is one of Asia’s biggest importer of labour, with workers mostly coming from neighbouring Indonesia.
London-based Amnesty also urged Malaysia to immediately halt judicial caning, which is meted out for serious crimes including murder and rape, as well as for immigration violations.
“The government’s figures confirm that Malaysia is subjecting thousands of people to torture and other ill-treatment each year,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International.
“While most countries have abolished judicial caning, Malaysia has expanded the practice. Parliament has increased the number of offences subject to caning to more than 60,” the group said.
Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein declined to comment on the issue on Monday but an aide confirmed the minister’s statement made to parliament.
Corporal punishment has become a hot topic in Malaysia, particularly after a a Muslim mother of two was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and a fine for drinking alcohol in 2009.
However, caning for such religious offences – ordered by Islamic courts which run in parallel with civil courts in the Muslim-majority country – is much lighter than in the civil justice system.
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s sentence for drinking alcohol was eventually reduced to community service but three other women then received between four and six strokes of the cane after being convicted of sex outside marriage.
The penalties triggered uproar among women’s activists and human rights advocates.
Posted in Articles
