[CTC] Mass graves of suspected trafficking victims found in Malaysia

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Four articles below...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/24/us-asia-migrants-idUSKBN0O904020150524

World | Sun May 24, 2015 7:02am EDTRelated: WORLD,  <http://www.reuters.com/news/world>UNITED NATIONS,  <http://www.reuters.com/subjects/united-nations>THAILAND <http://www.reuters.com/places/thailand>
Mass graves of suspected trafficking victims found in Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR | BY PRAVEEN MENON <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=praveen.menon&> AND TRINNA LEONG

Mass graves and suspected human-trafficking detention camps have been discovered by Malaysian police in towns and villages bordering Thailand, the country's home minister said on Sunday.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said officials are determining whether the graves were of human-trafficking victims, but did not say how many dead bodies were discovered.

"This is still under investigation," he told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Kuala Lumpur.

According to media reports, the mass graves were believed to contain the bodies of hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Police discovered 30 large graves containing the remains of hundreds of people in two places in the northern state of Perlis, which borders Thailand, the Utusan Malaysia newspaper reported.

The Star newspaper reported on its website that nearly 100 bodies were found in one grave on Friday. 

"I reckon it was a preliminary finding and eventually I think the number would be more than that," Ahmad Zahid said when asked about reports of the number of mass graves discovered.

Ahmad Zahid said the camps identified are in the areas of Klian Intan and villages near the border.

"They have been there for quite some time. I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years," he said.

A police spokeswoman declined to comment, saying a news conference on the issue would be held on Monday.

A police official who declined to be identified said police commandos and forensic experts from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, were at the site but it was unclear how many graves and bodies had been found. 

"Of course I believe that there are Malaysians involved," Ahmad Zahid said, when asked about possible involvement of locals in the incident.

Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingyas, who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work.

Smugglers have also used southern Thailand, and police believe the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border this month.

Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand's Songkhla province, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking. 

More than 3,000 migrants, most of them from Myanmar and Bangladesh, have landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia this month after a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand.

On Sunday, Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said that starting next week, it would begin the repatriation of 720 Bangladeshi migrants over the next month. 

The cost of the repatriation would be met by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman at Indonesia's disaster agency.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea. 

(Additional reporting by Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah in Kuala Lumpur and Chris Nusataya in Jakarta; Editing by Michael Perry <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=michael.perry&> and Dale Hudson <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=dale.hudson&>)


http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/17/modern-day-slavery-malaysia-electronics-industry
Modern-day slavery rife in Malaysia’s electronics industry
Report says a third of migrant workers in industry are trapped in debt bondage and have their passports illegally withheld

One-third of migrant workers in the Malaysian electronics industry, which produces goods for some of the world’s best-known brands, are trapped in forced labour, a form of modern-day slavery, according to new research.

A report by Verité, an NGO <http://www.verite.org/research/supply-chain-accountability> working on supply chain accountability, found that forced labour is present in the supply chains of a wide cross-section of household electronics brands, which use Malaysian factories to produce billions of pounds worth of goods every year.

The NGO interviewed more than 500 workers and concluded that debt bondage and the illegal confiscation of passports and documents were the main drivers of this “systemic” forced labour, which traps workers in low-paid jobs and prevents them from returning home.

Once in the workplace, migrant workers face further exploitation and abuse due to their inability to leave. Verité’s investigations found that workers were forced to live in cramped and dangerous accommodation, that female workers experienced sexual abuse by their supervisors, and migrants were forced to work excessive overtime under the threat of losing their jobs, which would leave them saddled with large debts they couldn’t pay off.

A large number of multinational companies from the US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea use Malaysia as their manufacturing base. In 2013, more than $2.6bn (£1.6bn) of investment originated from overseas <http://www.mida.gov.my/home/projects-approved-by-major-industry,-january---may-2014-and-2013/posts/>.

“What was most shocking to us was that this was happening in modern facilities, some of which were owned and operated by major international brands,” said Dan Viederman, chief executive of Verité. “This work has led us to conclude that forced labour in this industry is systemic and that every company operating in this sector in Malaysia <http://www.theguardian.com/world/malaysia> faces a high risk of forced labour in their operations.”

Thousands of people from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam and other countries travel to Malaysia every year for work. According to a 2010 Amnesty International report <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA28/002/2010>, many enter the workplace at least $1,000 in debt, after being charged high fees by recruitment agents. The vast majority of workers interviewed by Verité were found to have been charged excessive fees by recruitment agencies, both in their home countries and in Malaysia.


Verité’s investigation revealed that 77% of migrant workers had to borrow money for recruitment fees. Some 95% of those interviewed said they didn’t feel they could leave their jobs until they had paid off their debts. Their situation was made worse after a 2013 change in Malaysian law made it possible for employers to pass on the cost of a per-capita levy the government charges on the use of foreign labour to the workers themselves, increasing their debt by almost $400.

The interviews revealed that although it is illegal under Malaysian law, more than 90% of workers had their passports taken by managers at their place of work or by recruitment agents, with most saying they were unable to get them back.

This year the US state department downgraded Malaysia to the lowest tier of its Trafficking in Persons report <http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2014/226770.htm>, which ranks countries on efforts to end modern-day slavery.In the report, the state department criticised Malaysia for widespread abuse of its 4 million migrant workforce. Most of the electronics workers interviewed by Verité said they had been detained, harassed, blackmailed or threatened by immigration officials, police or the much-feared Rela <http://www.rela.gov.my/>, Malaysia’s voluntary citizen security corps, which is charged with rooting out illegal migrants.

Verité refuses to name brands it found to be using forced labour to produce goods, because it fears that would be counterproductive to its mission to create greater accountability in supply chains.

“We didn’t go into this research looking to name and shame,” Viederman said. “What we are concerned about is that the use of forced labour is absolutely systemic and that any company that produces or sources electronics from Malaysia must work to ensure that they are proactively taking actions to eliminate that risk.”



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-migrant-mass-graves-police-reveal-139-sites-some-with-multiple-corpses
Malaysia migrant mass graves: police reveal 139 sites, some with multiple corpses
Dozens of suspected people-smuggling camps also discovered in north of the country on border with Thailand


Malaysian police say they have uncovered 28 suspected human trafficking camps located about 500 metres from the country’s northern border, a day after authorities reported the discovery of multiple mass graves <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/mass-graves-trafficking-malaysia-perlis>.

“We discovered 139 of what we believe are graves,” national police chief Gen Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters. 

“It’s a very sad scene … To us even one is serious,” he added. “We are working closely with our counterparts in Thailand <http://www.theguardian.com/world/thailand>. We will find the people who did this.”

He could not immediately give a figure of how many bodies might have been buried in the sites but the confirmation that there are 139 sites means the number of dead will be much higher than the 100 first suspected.

The dense jungles of southern Thailand and northern Malaysia have been a major route for smugglers bringing people to south-east Asia by boat from Burma – most of them Rohingya Muslims who say they are fleeing persecution – and Bangladesh <http://www.theguardian.com/world/bangladesh>.

Khalid added that one grave site was about 100 metres from a mass grave discovered in Thailand earlier this month.

The findings appeared to indicate a system of jungle camps and graves that dwarfs those found by Thai police in early May, a discovery that ignited regional concern about people smuggling and trafficking.

The discovery also follows repeated denials by top Malaysian officials – who have long been accused by rights groups of not doing enough to address the illicit trade – that such sites existed on their soil.

Khalid said the biggest camp that had been discovered in Malaysia <http://www.theguardian.com/world/malaysia> could house about 300 people, while another one could take in about 100 people, showing the scale of the human traffickers’ operation in the area and highlighting fears that a high number of bodies will be unearthed.

“The forensic team has gone in and we will carry out the investigation,” Khalid told reporters in Wang Kelian, a Malaysian town where most of the grave sites were found.

“We will find out who caused this definitely. We will not condone anybody who is involved including Malaysian officials,” he said.

Khalid declined to say whether the victims are Rohingya or Bangladeshi, saying police have to wait until they exhume and identify the bodies. 

Khalid also said they found at least one highly decomposed body left with just skin and bone. Police believed two to three of the camps were only abandoned as recently as two weeks ago because they found rice, vegetables, recently cooked meals and cooking utensils.

Photos taken by police provide a glimpse of the migrants’ ordeal in the camps. They were held in enclosures made of crude wooden fencing and covered with a tarpaulin.

Also photographed were medicines wrapped in plastic bags, white clothes traditionally used to wrap bodies in Muslim burial rites, and a box used to store bullets marked Thai Arms Co Ltd.

 <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-migrant-mass-graves-police-reveal-139-sites-some-with-multiple-corpses#img-3>
The camps had areas for Muslim prayer rooms, cooking, and showering, plus guard posts and what appears to be a designated zone for sepak takraw, a kick volleyball game popular in Malaysia and Thailand.

Questioned on why there was no action taken earlier, Khalid said police have been building up intelligence based on 37 arrests of suspected human traffickers – including two policemen – since the start of the year, which led to the grim discovery.

No arrests have been made in connection to the discovery of the 139 grave sites.

Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said on Monday he was “deeply concerned” by the discovery in the jungle. “We will find those responsible,” Najib said in comments on his Facebook page.

Earlier in the month he declared “Malaysia does not and will not tolerate any form of human trafficking.”

But the revelation is likely to focus new attention on Malaysia’s record in battling a scourge that activists say is carried out by criminal syndicates, likely with the complicity of authorities.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimated on Friday that 3,500 migrants were still stranded on overloaded vessels with dwindling supplies, and repeated its appeal for the region’s governments to rescue them. 

Malaysia and Indonesia have said they will allow the thousands still at sea to come ashore temporarily and ordered their navies to rescue people found adrift. 

Thailand has said it will not allow migrant boats to land, but the prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, said on Monday the Thai navy would help those in medical need. “I have ordered the navy to take our boats and set up a floating command centre to help those who are hurt,” he said.



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/26/malaysia-mass-graves-villagers-tell-of-desperate-migrants-emerging-from-jungle-camps

Malaysia mass graves: villagers tell of migrants emerging from secret jungle camps
Residents on the border village of Wang Kelian fear the worst as they reveal stories of desperate migrants who stumbled into their midst 

Wang Kelian is an unassuming settlement but it has been thrust into the global spotlight this week after the discovery in nearby jungle of dozens of secret camps used by people smugglers and nearly 140 grave sites <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-migrant-mass-graves-police-reveal-139-sites-some-with-multiple-corpses>.

Police say some of those graves contain multiple bodies – raising the terrible prospect of hundreds of unexplained deaths. On Tuesday Malaysian authorities begun the grim task of exhumation. 

Some of the campsites included wooden pens, some with barbed wire and guarded by sentry posts. In one pen police found several parts of a decomposed body.

The camps appear to be part of a complex of bases stretching into Thailand on what had been a well-established route smuggling mostly Rohingya <http://www.theguardian.com/world/rohingya> people from Burma and Bangladeshis.

But the trade has been in chaos since early May, when Thai authorities launched a crackdown after the discovery of mass graves on their side of the border.

Thousands of migrants headed for Thailand started landing elsewhere in south-east Asia. And as the smugglers fled their jungle hideouts, migrants were spotted in Wang Kelian.

Ibrahim said she had seen several migrants, whom she believes to be Rohingya, and heard stories about many others, including that they would go to a nearby mosque to ask for help.

Others echoed her story. Another woman said she had spotted a Bangladeshi migrant wandering in the area and knocking on her neighbour’s door.

“It is very sad. We have been hearing these stories, but we can’t do much,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “We could only offer food, clean clothes, but we have to call the police and they will be taken away by the police after that.”

Malaysian officials have acknowledged the camps had been around for some time but defended themselves against criticism that no action was taken earlier. Authorities had previously vehemently denied there were any such sites in the country.

“We have been building up intelligence and information,” the national police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, told reporters on Monday, vowing tough action against any Malaysians involved.

But anti-trafficking groups said the latest discovery came as little surprise and would cast an even harsher spotlight on Malaysia, which was listed as ‘tier three’ by the US State Department’s annual human-trafficking report <http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/20/malaysia-us-human-trafficking-persons-report>, the worst ranking for countries which are failing to stop the trade <http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2014/226770.htm>.

“There were stories about these camps that went back nearly 10 years,” Matthew Friedman, the former chief of the UN inter-agency project on human trafficking, told the Guardian. He now heads the Mekong Club, which campaigns against slavery in Asia. “We passed the information on to the local authorities, but there was no follow-up.”

A report in 2009 by the US Senate committee on foreign relations <http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-111SPRT48323/html/CPRT-111SPRT48323.htm> found that “a few thousand” Burmese migrants had become victims of extortion and trafficking once they were deported across Malaysia’s border with Thailand.

In addition, it said there were questions about the “level of participation” of government officials in Malaysia and Thailand.

Villager Mahyuddin Ahmad said he has seen migrants in Wang Kelian for the past two years but more had been spotted in the past month – the largest group being about 10 people, including women and children.

The 55-year-old businessman, who said he had given food such as instant noodles and clothes to migrants, added: “It is a common sight here. We didn’t suspect anything because we thought they just come from Thailand.

“So we are really shocked to hear what the police revealed yesterday about the grave sites and jungle camps.”




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