The Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 by the US Department of
State said, “Singapore is a destination country for women and girls
subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced
prostitution, and for some migrant workers in conditions that may
be indicative of forced labor.”
“Tier 2 Watch List” is defined as follows:
“Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the
TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to
bring themselves into compliance with those standards, AND: a) the
absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very
significant or is significantly increasing; b) there is a failure
to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of
trafficking in persons from the previous year; or, c) the
determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring
themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on
commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the
next year.”
The US report highlighted the recruitment of women into
Singapore from Thailand, the Philippines and China “with offers of
legitimate employment but upon arrival in Singapore, are deceived
or coerced into forced prostitution.”
“Deceptive recruitment or subsequent coercion into commercial
sexual exploitation may also happen to women from other countries,
including India and Sri Lanka,” the report says.
Singapore is ranked together with Asian countries such as Laos,
Thailand, Maldives, Afghanistan and Brunei on the watch list.
“Some reports suggest organized crime groups may be involved in
international sex trafficking of women and children to Singapore,”
the 2010 report says. “Some foreign women in ‘forest brothels’
located on public lands near migrant worker dormitories are
reportedly victims of trafficking. It is believed substantial
recruitment networks may be operating in order to continue the
supply of women trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation in
Singapore. Based on data published as recently as 2008, Singaporean
men continue to be a source of demand for child sex tourism in
Southeast Asia.
The US Department of States says the Government of Singapore,
while not fully complying with “the minimum standards for the
elimination of trafficking… it is making significant efforts to do
so.”
However, despite this, Singapore’s ranking has been downgraded.
The report explains why: “[The] quantifiable indicators of
anti-trafficking prosecution and victim protection – which this
report emphasizes – indicate no increasing efforts to prosecute and
punish forced labor offenses or to identify both victims of sex
trafficking and victims of forced labor.” It called the Singapore
government’s response to sex trafficking in the island state
“inadequate” and that “ the government could and should be more
successful in finding, prosecuting, and punishing those responsible
for human trafficking.”
While there are several laws which gives the government power to
prosecute those involved in trafficking – such as the Penal
Code, Women’s Charter, Children and Young Persons Act, Employment
of Foreign Manpower Act, Employment Agencies Act, Employment Agency
Rules, and the Conditions of Work Permits – the report says the
Singapore government “demonstrated limited law enforcement efforts
to combat trafficking in persons during the year.”
To illustrate this inadequacy in government response, the
Department gave this example:
“The government investigated 32 reports of sex trafficking
during the year, of which two were confirmed by officials to be
trafficking cases and prosecuted. In one case, five Thai women were
brought into Singapore and forced into prostitution; their Thai
recruiters were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of 19
months and 18 months. In the other case involving a Thai girl who
was a sex trafficking victim, a Singaporean brothel owner was
sentenced to nine weeks’ imprisonment and a $20,000 fine, an
inadequate punishment for commercial sexual exploitation of a
child. Singapore police arrested 89 children for prostitution
offenses during 2009, all of whom should have been identified as
trafficking victims. Police investigated four of those cases as
potential sex trafficking cases, resulting in one successful
prosecution of a trafficker, as noted above. The government did not
report why police did not treat the other 85 children as potential
trafficking victims.”
The Singapore government “continued to deny that trafficking was
a significant problem in Singapore”, the report says, “and did not
make public any information concerning the extent of the
problem.”
“ Authorities did not have any institutionalized, interagency
structures to address trafficking, and did not have an action plan
to combat trafficking. The government unilaterally canceled an
anti-trafficking training, to be provided by a foreign government,
citing commitments involved in Singapore’s new integrated casino
resorts.”
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, presented the
Department’s annual report in Washington June 15.
“All of us have a responsibility to bring this practice to an
end,” she said.
“This human rights abuse is universal,” Mrs Clinton said, “and
no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the
responsibility to confront it.”
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has reacted
angrily to the US Department of State’s “Trafficking in Persons
Report 2010″.
The following is the Singapore government’s press statement
posted on the MFA
website.
In response to media enquiries on the US Department of
State’s “Trafficking in Persons Report 2010″ released on 14 June
2010 which had downgraded Singapore’s ranking from Tier Two last
year to Tier Two Watch List this year, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs Spokesman said:
“We have read the latest TIP Report. It is rather puzzling
because the US has not satisfactorily explained how it had arrived
at its conclusions. The Singapore Government is committed to
tackling the TIP issue, and our efforts in dealing with this issue
have certainly not weakened since last year. We will respond in
detail as appropriate in due course.
But let me say that the TIP Report is more a political
ritual than an objective study. How, for example, can the US rank
itself in Tier One when it is well known that the US has been
unable to stem a flood of illegal workers, many of whom are
trafficked by organised criminal gangs? It has not been able to
cope adequately with the problem and that is among the reasons why
immigration is such a hot political issue in the US. The US should
perhaps examine its own record more carefully before presuming to
pronounce on other countries. Then its reports may be more
credible.”
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SINGAPORE
15 JUNE 2010
———————–
Meanwhile, Malaysia was upgraded from “Tier 3” to “Tier 2” – a
ranking which puts it above Singapore’s. Malaysian Home Minister,
Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, said: “I must congratulate the
ministry’s officers and other relevant ministries in helping
Malaysia achieve this important stage of our efforts to stop human
trafficking crimes,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby.
“Human trafficking is a major international phenomenon in a
globalised and borderless world. This particular crime is linked to
prostitution, drug trafficking, cyber-crimes and terrorism.
“This is why we have to increase our efforts to combat human
trafficking.”
See
The Star Online
report.
