Trafficking In Women And Children

TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN: CHALLENGES TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF MALAYSIA SK/30/2003 DR. ZARINA @ ZAIRINA BINTI OTHMAN ABSTRACT Trafficking of women and children is one of the fastest growing transnational criminal activities in the world today. The region of Southeast Asia is both a major sending and a major destination for trafficking victims. Malaysia, one of the more developed and peaceful states in the region, is among the favorite destinations for the illegally trafficked human “commodities,” and yet this fact is little known to the public. Although, human trafficking does not pose an immediate security threat in the way that a traditional military threat would, it nevertheless is having disastrous consequences for human and national security.

This study is designed to analyze how trafficking in women and

children poses threats to human and national security of Malaysia. The objectives are to reveal the magnitude of the problem in Malaysia; to determine the origins and destinations of the victims who are being trafficked; to identify the land, sea, and air trafficking routes being used by crime syndicates. The primary sources used for the study were interviews-- of trafficking victims, of members of the police force, and of other related authorities.

Findings show that the majority of the victims are from

Indonesia, where Medan is one of the “exporting” points, and that the trafficking is closely associated with small but well connected syndicate. The crime syndicates profit in part from the conditions of poverty and ignorance in which the victims live, and also depend on the work of unscrupulous kidnappers and con artists. Based on that finding, it is suggested that the problem should be viewed from human security perspectives. Such a perspective would indicate a need to focus on strengthening the economic and social conditions in the country as a whole, and to broadly define national security by including

special attention to protecting the basic rights, safety, and needs of all the individual human beings who make up the civil society.