Two weeks ago, I flagged the fact that the U.S. State Department was preparing to upgrade Malaysia’s ranking in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report from Tier 3 to Tier 2 despite little to no evidence of any improvement whatsoever. This was to be done in order to include it in the secret and shady Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Here’s an excerpt from the post, To Pass TPP, U.S. State Dept. Upgrades Malaysia’s Human Trafficking Ranking Despite Discovery of Mass Graves:
So why would the State Department magically upgrade Malaysia? Well, because of a tiny provision in the fast track “Trade Promotion Authority” deal that Congress recently passed. It noted that fast track authority would not apply to trade deals involving countries that were categorized as “tier 3″ by the State Department. In other words, this should have given the US tremendous leverage to push Malaysia to really tackle the problem. Instead, because it appears that the administration is so focused on getting the TPP officially finished and ratified, it got the State Department to just magically upgrade Malaysia, and effectively spit on the graves of those murdered migrant workers.
So how bad is Malaysia’s human rights record? The Huffington Post reported the following earlier this month:
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