Warista perlu sokongan

Harian Metro (25/08/07)

KUALA LUMPUR: Persatuan Wawasan Warisan Wanita (Warista) meminta kerajaan dan badan korporat memberi perhatian serta sokongan kepada badan itu bagi merealisasikan usaha mengurangkan kadar pekerja seks dan penagih tegar di sekitar Jalan Chow Kit.Presidennya, Dr Mai Sargeant, berkata sehingga kini, pihaknya masih mencari tempat sesuai untuk dijadikan rumah perlindungan Warista.Persatuan yang didaftarkan sebagai badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) pada 19 Julai tahun lalu itu sudah melaksanakan pelbagai aktiviti termasuk mendekati golongan berkenaan bagi menerangkan kaedah menghindari jangkitan HIV, memberi kaunseling dan sokongan moral serta menyediakan peluang pekerjaan baru.

“Semua usaha ini dipacu bagi menyokong pekerja seks dan penagih supaya meninggalkan kerja di lorong gelap sekali gus menyediakan kehidupan baru yang lebih bermakna kepada mereka,” katanya ketika ditemui, semalam. Menurut Dr Mai, Warista berharap mempunyai pusat pemulihan yang dapat menampung keperluan golongan yang benar-benar mahu mengubah gaya hidup mereka.“Seboleh-bolehnya, kita mahu menarik golongan pekerja seks yang sudah berumur dan yang mempunyai anak untuk turut serta dalam program pemulihan ini nanti,” katanya.

Dr Mai berkata, kunjungan semula Warista ke Jalan Chow Kit baru-baru ini mendapati, golongan anak-anak pekerja seks semakin bertambah. “Mereka ini bukan saja terbiar tanpa pendidikan dan perhatian masyarakat, malah tidak memiliki pengenalan diri. “Ini bukan saja mendorong kepada masalah sosial pada masa akan datang, malah menggelapkan masa depan kanak-kanak tidak berdosa untuk mendapatkan pendidikan, rawatan kesihatan dan perhatian sewajarnya,” katanya.

Beliau berkata, kebanyakan golongan berkenaan mempunyai cita-cita untuk berubah, tetapi ia disekat dengan sikap keras hati masyarakat yang enggan mengiktiraf hak mereka sebagai manusia biasa. “Justeru, kami harap, dengan adanya pusat pemulihan itu nanti, mereka boleh diberi didikan semula untuk menjana pendapatan sendiri dalam beberapa bidang sedia ada seperti kelas jahitan yang dikendalikan Bumiputera Designer Association (BDA) dan beberapa kelas kemahiran lain,” katanya.

AIDS awareness lacking

The Star (23/08/07)

COLOMBO: A survey among a small group of HIV+ widows who have remarried found that their uninfected husbands do not use condoms consistently when engaging in sex with them.

“The women said they always reminded their husbands to use a condom but they do not always use it because they dislike condoms, do not have one at hand, or want to have a child,” said Malaysian AIDS Foundation advisor Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir at the Eighth International Congress on HIV/AIDS (Icaap) here in Sri Lanka at a session on married women’s vulnerability towards HIV/AIDS.

At the conference, married monogamous women have been cited as an emerging group most vulnerable to HIV infection, and among the most silent sufferers of the epidemic.

Marina was citing a study that she carried out with University Malaya post-graduate student Sumathi Govindasamy of 56 HIV+ widows in Kota Baru, Kelantan, to explore the issues and challenges they face. Out of those surveyed, six have remarried and their husbands know about their HIV+ status. However, remarriage is not an option considered by most of the HIV+ women surveyed as they will have to disclose their HIV+ status to their intended husband, and they are not prepared to take that step.

“All of the women surveyed were infected by their late husbands, and 80% were married to injecting drug users. However, they continued having unsafe sex with their husbands even after learning about their injecting behaviour, said Marina. “Some 53% of these women were still not sure if it was the drugs, or the act of injecting that caused the HIV infection. It was evident that basic knowledge on HIV transmission risk is low even now among these women,” she added. Only 10% of those surveyed have ever used a condom, and it was usually for “experimental reasons” rather than for protection. The rate of infection among women in Malaysia has gone up from 1.2% in 1990 to 9.4% in 2000.

At the Hospital Raja Perempuan Zainab in Kota Baru, eight or nine women are newly diagnosed with HIV every month, and most of them are infected through heterosexual sex. Some of the remarried HIV+ women were concerned that their uninfected husbands might choose to take another wife without informing the intended co-wife of the first wife’s HIV+ status. “Even with mandatory premarital testing, only the couple getting married will be tested,” reported Marina.

“There is a risk of HIV transmission from the HIV+ first wife to the husband to the second wife, especially if he continues to have sex with both women,” she said, adding that this indicated that mandatory premarital testing would not be effective in protecting people from HIV infection, especially in polygamous marriages.

On human trafficking in Malaysia

With reference to the recent case of the alleged trafficking of Lannie Erecito, a Filipino national in Penang, I am disturbed at the response of the Malaysian media, public and of a number of politicians towards the MSNBC reporting. These responses have ranged from being incredulous to actively disputing the credibility of the abovementioned report. Unfortunately, these reactions appear to be based on the denial that such an illicit industry actually exists in Malaysia.

The sad reality is that Malaysia is both a sending and recipient country in the business of trafficking humans. There have been many documented cases encountered by the Women’s Aid Organisation whereupon women from China, Indonesia and the Philippines are recruited on the pretext of an opportunity for better employment in Malaysia but are instead coerced or forced into prostitution. They were forced to service clients in brothels, karaoke bars and saloons; in many cases, they were paid poorly or not at all. In a series of interviews with women in detention in 2003 and 2004, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) also found evidence of human trafficking in Malaysia. There have also been several cases reported in the international media whereupon Malaysians have been trafficked to other countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany. In the past, Malaysians have also been arrested overseas for running human trafficking syndicates.

The nature and dynamics of human trafficking are extremely complex. More often than not, unfortunately, in countries such as Malaysia, the burden of proving to the authorities that a person has been trafficked falls heavily upon the survivor. In fact, in countries such as Thailand and Indonesia where human trafficking is acknowledged as a serious existing problem, refuge and protection for the survivor are arguably easier to obtain.

The current legal requirement for employers to hold on to their employee’s passport is one of the many conditions conducive to exploitation and abuse of such individuals but shrouded by the veil of legitimacy. Currently in Malaysia, survivors of sex trafficking escaping from captivity and running to the authorities might not lead towards salvation and justice. Failure to prove that you have been trafficked could mean being charged with immigration offences (your passport, which is proof that you entered the country legally is held by the recruiter or employer), detention and deportation by immigration authorities or worse, returned to your legal “employer”.

In the news report, the agent can be heard to say that the threat of prostitution was used as a ploy to scare and motivate the women to repay the initial investment. The business partner, who was a doctor, was also heard in the report talking about the six figure investment amount. When was the last time you heard of someone being trained to sing at nightclubs at a cost of RM 200,000 per person and then required to be bonded for eight years to recoup the investment? However, advocates working in this field will recognise that this is a common ploy by human traffickers to snare victims in financial bondage.

Lannie was also quoted as saying that “everything was fine” in front of the police officers of the Georgetown police headquarters. This was held against her as proof that she was not held against her will and not trafficked into the country as alleged. However, consider the fact that she was interviewed by the police with the alleged perpetrator sitting right next to her! Interviewing the victim together with the alleged perpetrator reminds me of the absurd practice whereupon a rape survivor is required to identify her assailant by coming face to face and tapping him on the shoulder. Already having gone through enough psychological trauma and possible threats of physical harm, it is too much to ask for a person to do whether the experience is of being trafficked or raped. It is not surprising that there is little or no evidence in such cases. Often, it is a case of the survivor’s word against the perpetrator. The latter could be an individual or the representative of a crime syndicate with the resources and ability to threaten your life, family and friends whether in Malaysia or back in your home country. The dynamics of this power over another human being cannot be overstated.

Consider the following legal statutes in international law regarding human trafficking: the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Trafficking in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others condemns both domestic and international trafficking, eliminates the requirement that recruitment be coercive or abusive, making trafficking possible even with the consent of the victim, and makes profiting from prostitution illegal. In 1994, the United Nations adopted a resolution on “Trafficking in Women and Girls’’ which broadened the definition of trafficking to include exploitation not only for purposes of prostitution but for all types of forced labour. This resolution recognized that often women knowingly agree to be transported across or within borders, legally or illegally, but are unaware of the exploitation that awaits them. This resolution states that trafficking be defined by the “end goal of forcing women and girl children into sexually or economically oppressive and exploitative situations’’. Malaysia’s 2007 Human Trafficking Act recently passed in Parliament, is an effort to aggressively address these issues and bring the country in line with international conventions on human trafficking.

However, effective enforcement remains necessary to ensure that the law is able to be translated into proper action and to protect those most in need and that victimisation of survivors of human trafficking do not occur.