A security expert says police have often been more reactionary than proactive.
Speaking to FMT, JK Associates principal consultant Khen Han Ming claimed that police had often dealt with the issue in a reactionary manner.
“Social activists are doing their best, but law enforcement needs to be more proactive by taking the information provided seriously and acting aggressively,” he said.
He was commenting on a recent news report about four foreign teenagers who had been forced into the sex trade after entering Sabah with their families in search of work.
The four, three girls and a boy, were rescued in a raid on an entertainment outlet at Cybercity near Kota Kinabalu on Feb 7.
The report quoted Kota Kinabalu police chief Asst Comm M Chandra as saying that the victims, who worked as guest relations personnel, were forced to provide sexual services to clients upon request.
The girls are aged 15, 17 and 18 and the boy is 16.
Khen said the large number of stateless children in Sabah and Sarawak made it difficult to gauge how many were involved in the sex trade in the two states.
“The stateless children in East Malaysia are like ghosts,” he said. “We don’t know how many of them are forced into the sex trade, but any local will tell you that it’s rampant and has been going on for a long time.”
Earlier, Tenaganita director Glorene Das told FMT that Malaysia was not only a destination country for human traffickers but also a source country and that the child sex trade in Peninsular Malaysia was as worrying a problem as it was in East Malaysia.
Khen said syndicates would attempt to confuse victims by keeping them on drugs and continually feeding them lies.
“These traffickers will tell the victims that they’re their boyfriends, all the while giving them drugs. They are taken out of their countries of origin in a drugged state and after having been indoctrinated.
“It’s also difficult to track Malaysian victims who fall under this type of trafficking because they often will have all the proper documents with them.”
Khen said combating the child sex trade was everyone’s responsibility. “The family, community and religious leaders play a very important role. They should work hand-in-hand with NGOs and enforcement authorities.”
However, he said many who were aware of the issue were too afraid to make police reports.
“People must report without fear,” he said. “The problem is they are afraid that if they report they will also become victims. It’s almost as if they don’t know who to trust. Surely, they must be able to trust the law enforcement authorities.”
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