Alor Setar, Malaysia – “Malaysian migration officers sold me to a  human trafficking gang located near the Thai-Malaysian border,”  said Lwin Ko, one of thousands of victims of human trafficking in  Malaysia.

Like many other Burmese migrant workers and refugees in Malaysia,  he was arrested for illegal entry into the country. After  processing in an immigration detention center, he said, immigration  officers transferred him directly to a gang of human traffickers,  who treated him as a “hostage,” or slave, to be held for a  lucrative ransom.

Migrant workers are apprehended and led to an open area by civilian  security volunteers to have their documents inspected during an  immigration raid in Kuala Lumpur in 2005.

If no ransom was forthcoming after a few weeks, Lwin Ko would be  passed on like many others to work as a crewman on a fishing boat  or, for women, to work as household servants or as prostitutes in  brothels.

When police arrested him, Lwin Ko, 17 years old at the time, was on  his way to work in a Malaysian factory. “I did not have any money,”  he said. “If I had about RM 100 [US $28], I could have paid the  Malay police to release me.”

After serving six months in prison, he was transferred to a  Malaysian immigration detention camp in Juru in Pulau Pinang  Province, one of the most notorious detention centers in the  country.

After one week, Malaysian immigration officers placed him in a  truck with more than a dozen other Burmese migrants.

“We drove for three hours to the border town of Alor Setar,” Lwin  Ko recalled. “The truck stopped at a roadside shop near a rubber  plantation, where officers had a meeting with traffickers. Then we  were moved to a traffickers’ truck where we were put with about 70  Burmese from the Juru detention camp.”

Lwin Ko received money from friends and paid RM 2,300 [$653] to  return to his job in Kuala Lampur.

Recently, six victims of human trafficking in Malaysia told their  stories to “The Irrawaddy”. Each told a similar tale, confirming  that corrupt Malaysian immigration officers, organized trafficking  gangs, and corrupt Thai officials, work in tandem to transfer  hapless illegal migrants to human traffickers.

After leaving detention centers, luckless migrants eventually end  up in buildings or homes along the Thai-Malaysia border owned by  the gangs.

None knew the amount of money the traffickers paid the corrupt  officers, but it’s estimated to be somewhere between RM 700 to  1,000 [$198- $286] for each person sold.

One of the victims, Win Tun, 26, who is from central Burma and who  worked in Kuala Lumpur, said: “We were arrested by police and  immigration officers, and they placed us in the hands of  traffickers.”

The gangs told the trafficking victims they had to pay RM 1,900 to  2,300 [$539-$653] if they wanted to return to Kuala Lumpur or  Burma. Most gang members, they said, were ethnic Mon from Burma.  Gang leaders, however, were usually Thai or Malaysian, who appeared  to be well connected to local Thai or Malaysian authorities. Some  leaders were reportedly officers in either immigration or police  services.

Sithu Aung, 30, who is from Rangoon and worked in Kuala Lumpur,  recalled what happened when he arrived at the traffickers’ building.

“They let me call my friends in Kuala Lumpur to ask for money,” he  said. “They asked me for RM 2,300 to take me from that border town  back to Kuala Lumpur.”

Unlucky migrants who cannot afford to pay for their freedom are  usually sold to owners of Thai fishing boats, where they work in  slave-like conditions.

According to a Burmese man, a former member of a trafficking gang  who is now in hiding in Kuala Lumpur, after Malaysian immigration  officers sell victims to a trafficking gang, the gangs usually wait  one or two weeks for money to arrive from a victim’s family or  friends.

If no money comes by the third week, said the man, who goes by the  name Wanna, the hostages are usually passed on to be sold into the  fishing industry or into household service or prostitution.

“Taking an illegal migrant is like taking a hostage,” said Wanna.  “If they have money, they cannot be freed until we are paid.

If they don’t have money, they will be sold somewhere else.”

Traffickers have no fear of authorities, he said, because  immigration officials see illegal migrants as “second-class  humans.”

Latheeffa Koya, a well-known Malaysian human rights lawyer, said  the human trafficking business along the border is nothing more  than a form of slave trade in the contemporary world. The problem  is transnational, she said, and to be remedied, all nations in the  region must cooperate with each other.

“The reasons behind the problems are corrupt law enforcement and  xenophobia,” she said. “The Malaysian people and the media have to  know about this ugly issue.”

Why are Burmese the main victims in the slave trade on the  Malaysian-Thai border?

Aegile Fernandez, the coordinator of Tenaganita, a Malaysian human  rights group, explained: “Burmese are highly valuable goods [for  traffickers] because as refugees they are not accepted by their own  country.”

Some victims who are sold to traffickers had even registered with  the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. But Malaysia has not signed the  UN refugee convention, she said, so it goes unrecognized and is of  no help.

“We are sad to see that Malaysia has high corruption,” Aegile  Fernanadez said. “Officials are so greedy for money. They look at  illegal migrants as a valuable resource.”

The situation facing Burmese migrants in Malaysia, who total an  estimated 500,000 people, is quite different from migrants from  other countries in the region who work in the country. Malaysian  human rights groups say that if Malaysian authorities arrest  undocumented migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines or  Bangladesh, they are returned back to their country through  government-to-government cooperation.

However, the Burmese military regime is unwilling to cooperate with  any country which has detained illegal Burmese migrants. When faced  with immigration problems, even legal migrant workers who are in  Malaysia via agents cannot get routine help from the Burmese  embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Sometimes Burmese embassies in Thailand and Malaysia even publish  notices in Burmese that read: “Come in person, but don’t come with  a problem.”

Of course, human traffickers operate on a two-way street, and also  smuggle people out of Burma through Thailand and into Malaysia. All  undocumented Burmese migrants interviewed by “The Irrawaddy” said  that they paid up to 100,000 kyat [about US $100] to trafficking  agents in Rangoon or Kawthoung, in southern Burma, to be smuggled  into Malaysia.

Traffickers in Kawthoung transport migrants to the Thai town of  Ranong by boat, where they then depart by bus or vehicle to cross  the Malaysian border.

“I was put in a box that they placed in the baggage area of a bus,”  said Myint Lwin, who recalled his journey into Malaysia.

Traffickers clearly have the help of local police and immigration  officials, said one migrant.

“I saw people in uniform help traffickers in smuggling people from  Thailand to Malaysia,” he said. “How else can we come to Malaysia  through so many checkpoints?”

How to combat the human trafficking issue in Malaysia and all of  Southeast Asia is a major issue for Malaysian authorities as well  as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Human rights  advocates and analysts say all Asean nations have a clear  obligation under the new Asean charter.

Migrant issues in the region are recognized as an urgent problem  that must be resolved, said Usana Berananda of the department of  Asean Affairs in Thailand’s foreign ministry.

But recognizing a problem and taking concrete actions to solve it  are not the same. Migrants and analysts are skeptical, pointing out  that officials in many Asean countries still view migrants as an  enemy, even though many significant industries and businesses in  the region survive by employing a migrant workforce, often illegal.

“I do not see any good prospect for Burmese migrants and refugees  unless governments in the region give up their bad policies on  migrants,” Aegile Fernandez said. “We need the governments to take  real action against corrupt immigration officers. However, it will  be difficult because the immigration department is also the  government itself.”

While activists and honest government officials struggle with the  human trafficking problem in the region, average Burmese migrant  workers in Malaysia simply hope they can avoid the corrupt  officials and traffickers.

“I need to be aware of everything,” said Myint Lwin, who was sold  to traffickers in late 2008. “Everything depends on karma. I am  just praying to secure myself from arrest and human traffickers in  the future.”

Stories such as Myint Lwin’s were outlined in a US State Department  report this year, citing credible evidence of Malaysian immigration  officials’ involvement in human trafficking. The report estimated  that only 20 percent of the victims sold to traffickers by  Malaysian officers are able to pay for their return.

The unlucky people who cannot pay are passed on into a pitiless  world of exploitation.

In June, the Malaysian government denied the US allegations in the  report, issuing a statement calling the allegations “baseless.”

“The government has already initiated a few internal  investigations, but [the accusations are] baseless,” said Malaysian  Home Ministry Secretary Gen Mahmood Adam.

Such words ring hollow to the Burmese victims now toiling on Thai  fishing boats or in houses of prostitution.