By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR
Malaysia's opposition pact has urged the federal government to withdraw a proposed bill to amend anti-human trafficking laws in the country, saying Thursday that it needs further clarity and strength by incorporating the latest discovery of graves along Malaysia's border with Thailand.
The plan to amend the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007 has been made a priority for the current sitting of Parliament.
Opposition leader Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail told lawmakers in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday that the government should refer the bill to a select committee to tighten and improve provisions to handle trafficking, without parliamentarians hastily pushing it through.
She underlined that changes should also be made to tackle allegations in a special branch report that implicated almost 80 percent of Malaysian border authorities in corruption.
On June 9, police said they had recovered the remains of 106 suspected human trafficking victims from gravesites found in the town of Padang Besar along the country’s northern border with Thailand.
Many Malaysian officers have been charged with involvement.
Ismail also enquired as to the current state of the around "8,000 or so" Muslim Rohingya refugees, who have been found stranded off Malaysia's and Indonesia's coast.
"The latest issues in the country should not distract the people from the plight of the Rohingya boat refugees who are stranded at sea," she said.
"It is essential that the desperate situation of the boat people remains top priority on our national agenda until their safety is assured."
Malaysia - along with Indonesia - has said it will take the migrants in for one year, ascertain which are asylum seekers and which are economic migrants, and then the international community will find homes for them.
Many, however, still remain at sea.
The Malay Mail reported Wednesday that several boats operated by human trafficking syndicates carrying Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis remain in international waters near the Thai region of Satun.
It said that they are waiting to see if they can enter Malaysia or should sail on to Indonesia.
"What has happened to the 8,000 or so reported to be on the boats three weeks ago? Is satellite data being used to identify the sites of the boats?" the opposition leader asked Thursday.
Last month, the bodies of more than 30 migrants were discovered in southern Thailand, prompting a crackdown that led to smugglers fleeing and boatloads of the migrants then turning up on Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian shores, while thousands more remained at sea.
Padang Besar is believed to have served as a resting point for traffickers transporting the migrants by boat from Myanmar - most of them Muslim Rohingya - and Bangladesh.
The discovery of the camps on Malaysian soil came after denials by government officials of local involvement in the people smuggling ring, which has helped trigger a regional crisis.
Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has since said that initial investigations found that Malaysian enforcement officers had collaborated with traffickers with international links spanning Thailand, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
