KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 6 — US Secretary of State John Kerry denied today that Malaysia’s upgrade in its human trafficking ranking to Tier 2 was a deliberate move to help speed along negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).
Instead, Kerry said Putrajaya earned points for significant improvements made last year in its war against human trafficking, having passed amendments to an anti-trafficking law and consulting the civil society on the issue.
“The reason I made this decision was based on the recommendations of my team,” Kerry told reporters here, explaining that he did not consult anybody else in the US administration to affect the ranking upgrade.
“Malaysia has passed additional legislation in 2014. They consulted with civil society, drafted amendments to anti-trafficking law in order to allow the country's flawed victim protection regime to change.”
Despite the upgrade, Kerry insisted that Malaysia still has a “long way to go”, and the move did not mean a “gold seal of approval” from Washington.
Kerry highlighted Malaysia’s pilot project that allows human trafficking victims to leave government detention facilities to find work, and the rise in the number of investigations and prosecutions for trafficking last year compared to 2013.
Despite that, Kerry admitted that he still had reservations over Malaysia’s efforts, and may still change his mind in the next annual evaluation.
“We still are concerned about the comparison of the number of investigations and prosecutions with the number of convictions. It’s not good enough yet,” said Kerry.
“Next year obviously I have the distinct ability to be able to make a different decision … I can guarantee you it is made with no leverage,” he added.
The State Department had on July 27 upgraded Malaysia from its lowest Tier 3 ranking on trafficking to Tier 2, drawing allegations that President Barack Obama’s administration was trying to curry favour with Malaysia to gain support for TPPA.
But the assessment sparked outrage from human rights and anti-trafficking groups, after a discovery in May of brutal human trafficking camps in Malaysia near the Thai border.
The State Department has since explained that its annual evaluation of Malaysia was completed before those revelations emerged.
