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Singapore. In a marked departure from the past, Singapore is working towards signing a United Nations treaty to prevent human trafficking.

This could have an impact on the way in which foreigners — especially young girls and women who ply the sex trade — are dealt with by the authorities when they are caught.

Instead of being regarded as immigration offenders and deported, they could be treated as victims and allowed to remain in shelters here while their cases are investigated.

Human trafficking refers to obtaining or holding someone forcibly for sex or labour purposes.

Singapore is among a few countries yet to sign the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, which has been signed or ratified by nearly 150 parties.

A Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) spokesman told The Straits Times that Singapore would sign the UN treaty when it was satisfied with 'domestic measures put in place to ensure adherence' to it. These could include changes in local laws.

The spokesman said that Singapore took a serious view of trafficking, and the problem could worsen.

“We are aware that as Singapore grows as a hub for travel, economic activity and tourism, the likelihood that we become an attractive destination for trafficking syndicates will increase,” she said.

To tackle the problem, the Government set up an inter-agency task force last November, co-chaired by the MHA and the Ministry of Manpower.

That came after the United States State Department, in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report last June, downgraded Singapore to a watch list of countries which it said did not fully comply with minimum international standards to eliminate trafficking. This year's report is due soon.

As far back as 2004, the TIP report said that Singapore had a “significant trafficking problem.”

The Singapore Government's oft-stated position has been that trafficking cases are rare here.

There have also been differences in defining what, exactly, constitutes trafficking.

Under UN and American law, any man, woman or child who is deceived or coerced into sex or labour is a victim of trafficking, regardless of whether he or she initially consented to the job.

Singapore's position earlier was that a foreigner who entered the country willingly to work illegally — as a sex worker, for example — was a party to 'human smuggling', and therefore an immigration offender.

But the UN's concern is that even those who are willingly smuggled in could end up victims of trafficking if they are exploited or forced to work against their will.

Asked if Singapore's position was different now, the MHA spokesman said that “as long as a person claims to have been trafficked, she will be treated as a victim.”

The Straits Times understands that this means that rather than being deported — as foreign sex workers caught in raids usually are — a woman who claims she was trafficked could be housed in a shelter here, while the authorities investigate her case against her alleged traffickers.

The MHA spokesman said that even a foreigner who arrives willingly to be a sex worker could be treated as a trafficking victim rather than an offender, if she claims she was 'deceived, defrauded or held against her will' while here.

Such an approach falls within the definition of trafficking under the UN treaty and in fact has already been '”operationally adopted” by the police while classifying trafficking cases.

However, this has yet to make an impact in terms of bringing traffickers to book.

So far, only two of the 32 alleged sex trafficking cases investigated by the police in 2009 — the most recent year for which figures are available — were prosecuted. And the total number of sex trafficking investigations actually fell from 54 in 2008 to 32 in 2009.

One reason could be that trafficking continues to be under-reported, said Bridget Tan, president of migrant workers group, the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home).

Trafficking victims are often afraid they might be treated as offenders for violating vice or immigration laws, she said.

Trafficking cases are also hard to prove, as many victims do not even know the real names of their traffickers — the men and women who act as their pimps and minders, who hold their passports and watch their every movement.

The MHA spokesman said that as trafficking is “fundamentally clandestine and transnational in nature,” the culprits might not be taken to task if victims did not come forward.

Washington-based Luis CdeBaca, tasked by President Barack Obama to lead America's global fight against trafficking, told The Straits Times in a phone interview that the authorities here could be more proactive.

“Trafficking investigations should involve intelligence gathering, just like counterterrorism,” said the ambassador-at-large at the US State Department's office to monitor and combat trafficking. “Waiting for a complaint to be lodged and then reacting to it is just not enough.”

But he welcomed Singapore's recent efforts, especially its setting up of an interagency task force and adopting UN definitions of trafficking, as steps in the right direction.


Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055