KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 — A DAP lawmaker questioned today Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s remark that Malaysia does not tolerate human trafficking, reminding the prime minister that it was just last year that the US State Department gave the country a downgrade in its Trafficking in Persons report.

Serdang MP Dr Ong Kian Ming noted that Malaysia’s “Tier 3” grade in the report puts the country in the category of governments that “do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so”.

“The prime minister’s statement is a joke given Malaysia’s atrocious record on human trafficking and the lack of political will to undertake meaningful steps in order to address these serious shortcomings,” Ong said in a statement here.

Yesterday, in response to the escalating Rohingya immigrant crisis off Malaysian waters, Najib declared that “Malaysia does not and will not tolerate any form of human trafficking”.

The prime minister also warned that those found guilty of crimes of trafficking will be held accountable for their actions.

Last weekend, more than 1,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were left stranded in Langkawi, Kedah, apparently after human traffickers abandoned ship and left them amid a massive crackdown on trafficking in Thailand.

Malaysia has classified them as illegal immigrants and has detained them in an immigration depot, where they will be held over the next few months before they are deported home.

Apart from that group, an estimated 6,000 to 20,000 migrants fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh are still currently adrift in the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca. They have also been abandoned by their traffickers.

The United Nations has labelled the situation a massive humanitarian disaster.

Reports from foreign media crews that have caught up with the packed vessels say the migrants are starving and desperate for help, having gone with very little food and water over the months they have been at sea.

Ong said the ongoing crisis is just the tip of a much larger iceberg on human trafficking here.

For as long as the Malaysian government refuses to have an “honest examination” of its policies towards refugees and migrants, he said the country’s human traffickng record will continue to languish.

Malaysia has since said it would push boats full of migrants back to sea, a policy that has drawn criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who warned of a “massive humanitarian crisis”.

“I don’t see why we are under pressure,” said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

“We are doing what we think we should do. We have to consider what our people want to see us doing. They don’t want to see immigrants come into our country.”

Last year, Malaysia was relegated from Tier 2 to Tier 3 in the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, the lowest ranking, joining Thailand, The Gambia and Venezuela.

In the report, Tier 1 countries are those who meet anti-trafficking standards. Tier 2 do not but are making a significant effort to do so. Tier 3 countries do not meet the standards and not making significant effort to do so.

Tier 3 countries are open to sanction by the US government. A US law also includes a watch list, in which countries on Tier 2 for two years are downgraded to Tier 3 unless they receive presidential waivers, available for two additional years.