The Malaysian government stated their commitment to combating human trafficking and migrant smuggling after the U.S. State Department’s new report said the country lacked progress in countering trafficking in the past year.
The U.S. State Department released its annual Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report (pdf) on June 28, in which it downgraded Malaysia from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watch List. The different tiers are assigned based on the extent a nation’s government has complied to the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA)—a U.S. law which monitors and eliminates international human trafficking. Countries in Tier 1 are considered to have met the minimum requirements of the legislation, while countries in Tier 3 do not fully meet the standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.
