HUMAN TRAFFICKING

LQC7013
DR. HAEZREENA BEGUM
BINTI ABDUL HAMID
 WEIGHTAGE AND ASSESSMENT

Weightage 70/30 – 70 CA and 30 AA

Test – Week 7 30

Presentation – Week 10 - 12 40

Alternative Assessment – Week 13 - 14 30

 1. Hamid, H. B. A. (2024). Handbook on Human Trafficking: A Legal and
Criminological Perspective. Universiti Malaya Press. ISBN: 9789674883164

2. Hamid, H. B. b. A. (2024). Human Trafficking Playbook. Universiti Malaya

Press. ISBN: 9789674883171

3. Hamid, H. B. b. A. (2021). A Review of the Anti-Sex Trafficking Approach

in Malaysia, Journal of Malaysian And Comparative Law, 48(2), 17-34.

4. Purkayastha, B., & Yousaf, F. N. (2019). Human Trafficking : Trade for

Sex, Labor, and Organs. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

READINGS 5. Mary, C. B. 2022. Human Trafficking : Interdisciplinary Perspectives,

London, Routledge.

6. United Nations. (2003). Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish

Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol)
(entered into force on 25 Dec 2003).

7. Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007.

8. The Declaration Of Istanbul On Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism

2008
OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE
Week 1 : Introduction to human trafficking and various forms of trafficking, slavery

Week 2 : Migration and Border Crossing, Push and Pull Factors – poverty,
conflation of terms – human trafficking and smuggling, debates

Week 3 : Sex Trafficking – History of sex trafficking (men and women) (White Slave
Trade), Colonial - military prostitution, present era, debates on sex work, sex
tourism, mail-order brides

Week 4 : Sex Trafficking (part 2) - bride trafficking, traffickers and trafficked,

technology and trafficking

Week 5 : Labour Trafficking, forced labour – plantation, trafficking at

sea, Kafala System, domestic servitude, scamming industry

Mid-term break (8.04.2024 – 14.04.2024)

OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE

Week 6: Trafficking In Persons for the Purpose of Organ Removal. Flow and
processes, organ harvesting and the black market, organ brokers.

Week 7: Assessment Week (22.04.2024)

Week 8: Trafficking of Children. Surrogacy, child harvesting, trafficking of babies,

baby factories, child soldiers

Week 9: Policing and Victim Protection in Malaysia

Week 10 – 12: Seminar

Week 13 – 14: Assessment Weeks

 The acquisition of people by improper means
such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim
of exploiting them (UNODC, 2018).

WHAT IS
Treated as commodity and traded for
commercial purposes.

HUMAN
TRAFFICKING A violation of human rights.

Can be a form of transnational crime.

 ❖ Recruitment or movement of persons by means
of coercion or deception into exploitative
labour or slavery-like practices (Chuang, 2006).
❖A situation where an individual loses autonomy
ACADEMIC and control of his/her own situation (Lisborg,
2014).
DEFINITIONS ❖ Anexploitative relationship or any power
imbalance which includes the abuse of a
position of trust (United Nations Office On
Drugs and Crime, 2014).
 PROTOCOL TO PREVENT, SUPPRESS AND PUNISH
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS ESPECIALLY WOMEN AND
CHILDREN, 2000 (PALERMO PROTOCOL)

• To prevent and combat trafficking in persons, with

particular attention to women and children

• To protect and assist victims of trafficking, with full

respect for their human rights; and

• To promote international co-operation to achieve

above objectives
 PROTOCOL TO PREVENT, SUPPRESS AND PUNISH
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS ESPECIALLY WOMEN AND
CHILDREN, 2000 (PALERMO PROTOCOL)

Article 3 (a) states:

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the ‘recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or
use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of
deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of
the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent
of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of
exploitation.
 Article 3 (b) - Consent of trafficked
person is irrelevant if it involves any of
the means in as stated in para 3 (a)

ARTICLE 3 Means in para 3(a): force, coercion

including through both physical and
PALERMO psychological, abduction, fraud,
deception, the abuse of power or
PROTOCOL vulnerability, or giving payment or
benefits, for example in relation to
immigration status, to a person in control
of the victim
 ❖ Child
– Do not need to prove any of
the means as stated in Article 3 (a) of
the Palermo Protocol

❖ The recruitment, transportation,

EXCEPTIONS transfer, harbouring or receipt of a
child for the purpose of exploitation
shall be considered "trafficking in
persons" even if this does not involve
any of the means set forth in
subparagraph (a) of this article;
Three Main Elements:

Act – What is done, Means – How it is done and

Purpose – Why it is Done
THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HT

• For children
WHAT IS COERCION?

Coercion is defined as:-

(a) threat of serious harm to or physical restraint against

any person;

(b) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person

to believe that failure to perform an act would result in
serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or

(c) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process;

COERCION
Coercion can also be carried out through
psychological means (UNODC, 2009).
Psychological means:
A person is not free to leave his or her work
because of threats to harm the person’s family
or fear of being reported to the authorities (Dando,
Walsh, & Brierley, 2016), the deprivation of
psychological needs (e.g., no medical care;
restricted food and water; limited sleep), or the
denial of privacy (e.g., overcrowded living and
working conditions) all of which physically humiliate
and degrade victims, and induce physical
exhaustion (Dando et al., 2016).
 EXPLOITATION
❖ Using someone to attain benefit for oneself: This will
typically be direct or an indirect financial gain, but not
necessarily (Bernat, 2011).

❖ Article 3A Palermo Protocol:

‘Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of

the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual
exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices
similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs’
CONSENT IRRELEVANT

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking

is irrelevant where any means in para
3(a) has been used;

(c) For children means not required

(d) "Child" shall mean any person under

eighteen years of age.
DEBT BONDAGE
DEBT BONDAGE
• A form of feudal servitude, where credit is exchanged for pledged
labour

• Factors: poverty, corruption, social apathy, class etc.

• Reasons: desperate for credit, food, shelter, sickness, marriage, natural

disaster, etc.

• Forced by traffickers to continue to work in order to re-pay debts

purportedly incurred through their transportation, recruitment, or sale
(Coomaraswamy, 2003; Kempadoo, 2005)
TRAFFICKED PERSONS

• Any person who is the victim or object of an act of trafficking in

persons.
• Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe
that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or
physical restraint against any person; or
• The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
(UNODC, 2014)
MALAYSIA ANTI-TRAFFICKING LAWS
• ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS AND ANTI-SMUGGLING OF MIGRANTS ACT
2007 (ATIPSOM)
• Scope of application
• S.3 - The offences under this Act apply, regardless of whether the conduct
constituting the offence took place inside or outside Malaysia and whatever
the nationality or citizenship of the offender, in the following circumstances:
• (a) if Malaysia is the receiving country or transit country or the exploitation
occurs in Malaysia;
• (b) if the receiving country or transit country is a foreign country but the
trafficking in persons or smuggling of migrants starts in Malaysia or transits
Malaysia.
DEFINITION OF TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
• S.2 - "trafficking in persons" means all actions of recruiting, conveying, transferring, acquiring,
maintaining, harbouring, providing or receiving, a person, for the purpose of exploitation, by the
following means:

• (a) threat or use of force or other forms of coercion;

• (b) abduction;

• (c) fraud;

• (d) deception;

• (e) abuse of power;

• (f) abuse of the position of vulnerability of a person to an act of trafficking in persons; or

• (g) the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having control
over the trafficked person;
ATIPSOM
• S.2 - "trafficked person" means any person who is the victim or object
of an act of trafficking in persons;

• S.2 - smuggled migrant" means a person who is the object of the act of
smuggling of migrants, regardless of whether that person participated in
the act of smuggling of migrants;

• Offence of trafficking in persons

• S. 12 Any person, who traffics in persons not being a child or not being
a person who is unable to fully take care of or protect himself because
of a physical or mental disability or condition, commits an offence and
shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term not
exceeding twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Aggravated offence of trafficking in persons

s.13 - Any person who commits an offence of trafficking in persons, where the trafficked person not being a
child or not being a person who is unable to fully take care of or protect himself because of a physical or
mental disability or condition where any of the following applies:

(a) in committing the offence, the person caused grievous hurt to the trafficked person or to any other
person;

(b) in committing the offence, the person caused death to the trafficked person or to any other person;

(c) in committing the offence, where caused by or at the time the person was trafficked, the trafficked person
committed suicide;

(d) in committing the offence, the person exposed the trafficked person to life threatening diseases,
including the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS);

(e) in committing the offence, the person engaged in trafficking in persons activities as part of an organized
criminal group activity; or

(f) where the offence of trafficking in persons was committed by a public officer in the performance of his
public duties, shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for life or with imprisonment for a term
which shall not be less than five years, and shall also be liable to whipping.
Offence of trafficking in children or a person who is unable to fully take care of or protect
himself because of a physical or mental disability or condition

s. 14 (1) Any person, who traffics in persons being a child or a person who is unable to fully
take care of or protect himself because of a physical or mental disability or condition,
commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for life or with
imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years, and shall also be liable to
whipping.

(2) In a prosecution for an offence under this section, the means used against a trafficked
person who is a child or a person who is unable to fully take care of or protect himself
because of a physical or mental disability or condition is irrelevant and is not a requirement
to be proved.
Offence of profiting from exploitation of a trafficked person

s. 15 - Any person who profits from the exploitation of a trafficked person commits an offence and shall,
on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding fifteen years and shall also be
liable to a fine of not less than five hundred thousand ringgit but not exceeding one million ringgit and
shall also be liable to forfeiture of the profits from the offence.

Offence in relation to trafficked person in transit

s.15A - Any person who brings in transit a trafficked person through Malaysia by land, sea or air, or
otherwise arranges or facilitates such act commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be punished with
imprisonment for a term not exceeding fifteen years and shall also be liable to fine.

Consent of trafficked person irrelevant

s. 16 - In a prosecution for an offence under section 12, 13 or 14, it shall not be a defence that the
trafficked person consented to the act of trafficking in persons.
 Debt bondage

Falsification of Withholding of
documents wages

Trafficked Fear of the

Limited freedom
Person Authorities

Exploitation Threat, Force, Coercion

Deception and false

promises
30
 TOOLS
OF
CONTROL
 WHAT TYPES OF INDUSTRIES ARE INVOLVED WITH HUMAN
TRAFFICKING?

• Agriculture or horticulture • Food processing

• Construction
• Garments and textiles under
sweatshop conditions
• Catering and restaurants
• Domestic work
• Entertainment
• Sex industry
• Healthcare
• Contract cleaning, mainly in
private but also in public sector
employment, such as the
provision of healthcare services
• Scamming industry
• Others
 SEX TRAFFICKING/SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
Types: Sex workers:
❖ Strippers
• International sex trafficking ❖ Social escorts
❖ Pornographic actors
• Domestic sex trafficking
❖ Beer hostesses/bar girls/dancers or
performers
• Child sex trafficking ❖ Masseurs

❖ Dancing boys (Pakistan/Afghanistan)

❖ Temple sex slaves/Devadasi (India)
❖ Mail-Order brides, etc
LABOUR TRAFFICKING
❖ Domestic servitude (domestic ❖ Scamming Industries
maids & nannies) ❖ Farms of multinational corps
❖ Manual labourers ❖ Agricultural & landscape work
❖ Small-scale factory workers ❖ Quarries

❖ Construction worker ❖ Restaurants

❖ Sweatshop workers ❖ Hotels (housekeeping)

❖ Camel jockeys ❖ Nail salons

❖ Street beggars ❖ Fisheries

❖ Camel jockeys
CHILD TRAFFICKING
❖ Sex Trafficking

❖ Labour Trafficking

❖ Forced Begging (e.g China, Romania, Thailand)

❖ Child Soldering (e.g Rwanda, DRC Congo)

❖ Suicide Bombers (e.g Afghanistan)

❖ Child Sacrifice/Ritual (e.g Uganda)

❖ Sale of Babies (Iraq, Malaysia)

❖ Organ Trafficking (Bangladesh, Middle-East)

STATE-SPONSORED HUMAN TRAFFICKING
• While the TVPA and UN TIP Protocol call on governments to proactively address
trafficking crimes, some governments are part of the problem, directly compelling their
citizens into sexual slavery or forced labour schemes.

• From forced labour in local or national public work projects, military operations, and
economically important sectors, or as part of government-funded projects or missions
abroad, officials use their power to exploit their nationals.

• To extract this work, governments coerce by threatening the withdrawal of public

benefits, withholding salaries, failing to adhere to limits on national service,
manipulating the lack of legal status of stateless individuals and members of minority
groups, threatening to punish family members, or conditioning services or freedom of
movement on labor or sex.

• In 2019, the U.S Congress amended the TVPA to acknowledge that governments can
also act as traffickers, referring specifically to a “government policy or pattern” of
human trafficking, trafficking in government-funded programs, forced labour in
government-affiliated medical services or other sectors, sexual slavery in government
camps, or the employment or recruitment of child soldiers.
 TRAFFICKING PROCESS
(INTERNATIONAL/TRANSNATIONAL)

Recruitment Country of Origin

Transportation Country of Transit

(not in all cases)

Exploitation Country of Destination

 TRAFFICKING PROCESS (DOMESTIC)
Recruitment Place of Origin

Transportation Place of Transit

(not in all cases) (not in all cases)

Exploitation Place of Destination

HISTORICAL CONTEXT (SLAVERY)

❖ Slaveis derived from the word ‘Slav’, a term used to describe people
sold into slavery to the Muslims of southern Spain and North Africa
during the Middle Ages who originated in the Slavic regions of eastern
Europe (Lewis, 1990).

❖ Hammurabi Code (1780 BCE) officially recognised slavery.

❖ The
Old and New Testament, and the Quran recognised slavery (Lewis,
1990). Disputed by clerics.
SLAVERY
Characteristics of slavery:
❖Dehumanisation – classified as human chattels that can
be sold, hired, mortgaged, bequeathed and moved from
place to place.
❖Enslaved population - foreigners, criminals, war
captives, different religious and ethnic background.
❖Heritable condition – passed from mother to child
(bloodlines).
SLAVERY
FLAGELLATION FACE MASK

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-7643-a3d9-e040- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7856157.stm
e00a18064a99
 SLAVERY
Two types – voluntary and involuntary

❖Voluntary slave – debt bondage. Indebted individuals or

dependent family members could sell themselves to pay off
their debts (inherited by debtor’s family).

❖Involuntary:prisoners of war, immigrants, refugees,

prisoners and children of slaves
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

❖Occurred at different times in different countries. Example:

U.S abolished slavery in 1865 through the 13th
Amendment.

❖Each step was usually the result of a separate law or

action - although slavery abolished -some practices akin to
it continue.
INTERNATIONAL LAWS - ABOLITION

❖Anti-Slavery Convention 1927.

❖Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and
Practices Similar to Slavery (1956) defines slavery as:
‘the status or condition of a person over whom any or
all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership
are recognised. It involves absolute control of one
person or group of persons over another’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK_232xzJ5E
TRAFFICKED PERSONS
Common strategies:
❖Women
❖ Job offers through family, friends,
❖Children relatives, neighbours, acquaintance
❖ Deceit – promises of good jobs and
❖Men
salary
(includes LQBTQIA) ❖ Internet
i.e social media such as
facebook, group chats i.e wechat,
❖Any nationality – watsapp etc.
particularly from less
developed countries ❖ Sold by parents or family members
or developing ❖ Romantic relationships, marriage
countries.
❖ Forced, coerced, threatened
TRAFFICKERS
Transnational Organised Crime Groups
Work Agents
Solo Operators e.g owners of small businesses
Spouses, partners, lovers
Family members, relatives
Friends, acquaintances
Neighbours
Corrupt State Officials
LUCRATIVE
BUSINESS

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carmenniethammer/2020/02/02/cracking-the-150-billion-business-of-human-trafficking/?sh=68d6599c4142
LUCRATIVE BUSINESS
Human trafficking earns profits of roughly $150 billion a year for
traffickers, according to the ILO report from 2014.

The following is a breakdown of profits, by sector:

$99 billion from commercial sexual exploitation;

$34 billion in construction, manufacturing, mining and utilities;

$9 billion in agriculture, including forestry and fishing;

$8 billion dollars is saved annually by private households that employ

domestic workers under conditions of forced labour.
INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS
❖The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 1979.

Article 6 states:

‘State Parties shall take all appropriate measures,

including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women
and exploitation of prostitution of women’
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, 1990
Article 34 - To protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and
sexual abuse. To take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral
measures to prevent:
(a) any child from engaging in any unlawful sexual
activity;
(b) the use of children in prostitution or other unlawful
sexual practices;
(c) the use of children in pornographic performances
and materials.
Article 35 - measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in
children for any purpose or in any form.
CHALLENGES

❖Three main challenges in combating trafficking:

➢ Reducing the demand
➢ Protecting the trafficking victims
➢ Targeting the traffickers

❖Orreferred to as the 3 Ps: Prevention

Protection and Prosecution.
 UNODC GLOBAL REPORT ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
❖ 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in
Persons.

❖ 136 countries - provides an overview of patterns and flows of

trafficking in persons at global, regional and national levels. The 2018
report can be assessed here https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-
and-analysis/glotip/2018/GLOTiP_2018_BOOK_web_small.pdf

❖ Mostcountries have passed legislation that criminalizes trafficking in

persons as a specific offence.
SOUTH EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
 U.S STATE DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (TIP) REPORT 2023
• Based on the extent of
governments’ efforts to comply
with the “minimum standards
for the elimination of trafficking”
found in Section 108 of the
TVPA

• Reports human trafficking

activities around the world

• Divides countries into a "tier"

system
PENALTIES FOR TIER 3 COUNTRIES
❖ Subject to certain sanctions

❖ May not receive funding

❖ FaceU.S. opposition to assistance International Monetary Fund (IMF)

and the World Bank

Waiver:
❖ If the President determines that the provision of such assistance is in
the interest of U.S.

❖ To avoid significant adverse effects on vulnerable populations,

including women and children
 MALAYSIA Malaysia is a destination, and to a lesser extent, a source and transit country
for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically
conditions of forced prostitution and for men, women, and children who are in
HUMAN conditions of forced labour (U.S Department of State, 2022).

2021 and 2022 - Placed at Tier 3 – lowest level, 2023 – Tier 2 Watch List
TRAFFICKING Malaysia is recognized as a destination and a transit country for trafficking in
persons and smuggling of migrants, with migrants often falling prey to
unscrupulous recruiters which leaves them stranded and undocumented (IOM).
HUMAN TRAFFICKING COVID-19
ERA
SOURCE, TRANSIT AND DESTINATION COUNTRIES

❖Terms (above) adapted from Trafficking in Persons:

Global Patterns, UNODC, Trafficking in Persons
Citation Index.

❖Based on data provided by 161 countries by 113

source institutions.

❖Different studies define regions differently.

UNODC, 2014
 Trend in the share of men among the detected
victims of trafficking in persons
25%

21%
20%
17%

15% 14%
13%
12%

10%

5%

0%
Category 1
2004 2006 2009 2011 2014

Source: UNODC 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD-c8myFr-Y&t=298s
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