Human Trafficking

Image taken from: http://thenewagenda.net/2009/09/16/my-outrage-at-human-trafficking-and-acorn/

According to Wikipedia, Human Trafficking refers to the practice of people being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their home or country, and then compelled to work with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. The victims of human trafficking can be used in a variety of situations, including prostitution, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage) and other forms of involuntary servitude.

It is not a fresh issue of seeing human trafficking all around the world. Most of the ethnic immigrants tend to seek for a proper job when they move out their village. However, luckless victims might met the sex brokers, becomes one of their source in human trafficking. The so called "agents" can even be the people they know, for examples aunts, uncles or friends by telling them a fantastic story life, enticing them to leave their home. There was a case which a woman from Vietnam, arrived in Malaysia by valid means with the purpose of finding jobs. However, it turned out to be a nightmare where she was taken away by a human trafficking syndicate to a house in Taman Usahawan in Kepong.
In addition, there was a hot issues of Human Trafficking on the Malaysian- Thai border. One of the victim who is from central Burma who worked in Kuala Lumpur was arrested by police and immigration officers, and the worst is that they were placed in the hands of traffickers later!
The traffickers threatened the victims by asking them to pay RM 1,900 to 2,300 if they want to return to Burma. The victims also pointed out that the gang leader are normally Thai or Malaysian. Normally, those who can't pay are exploit by the traffickers.How true is issue which stated that there was a good relationship between Malaysian and Thai authorities involving human trafficking? it indeed need a thorough investigation by the Government!

In Malaysia, under Section 13, Any person who traffics in person not being a child, for the purpose of exploitation, by one or more of the following means:

(a) threat;
(b) use of force or other forms of coercion;
(c) abduction;
(d) fraud;
(e) deception;
(f) abuse of power;
(g) abuse of the position of vulnerability of a person to an
act of trafficking in persons; or
(h) the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to obtain
the consent of a person having control over the trafficked
person,
commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term not less than three years but not exceeding twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Image taken from: http://www.humantraffic.org/

Besides, Malaysia-Australia also agree to fight for Human Trafficking in working visit of Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein to Australia. A close cooperation will be addressed and the efforts of programmes should be carried out to deter the issue. He also added that the involving agencies including police, the Immigration Department, Foreign Ministry, the Attorney-General's Department and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.

Not only the authorities and immigration officers, the public, or even the societies needed to be educated so that they won't fall into the trap of traffickers. Even though the process of law to protect victims has been pushed, without the lead of government in stamping out trafficking, the law will be worthless too.

Do we still have our own privacy?

According to Privacy Commissioner of Canada, privacy means the right to control access to one's person and information about one's self. The right to privacy means that individuals get to decide what and how much information to give up, to whom it is given, and for what uses. However, do you think that we as a Malaysian are under the protection of privacy?

Image taken from psixp.wordpress.com

In Bangkit.net, i have found out that Malaysia scored miserably in the international ranking on privacy for 2007 mainly due to the continued use of the Internal Security Act which allows for police search and seizure of evidence without a warrant, the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) and the use of biometrics to monitor immigrants in an environment where privacy laws. There are numerous cases which reveal our privacy to the public around the world. The case of Elizabeth Wong, who was a Bukit Lanjan assemblyman and Selangor executive council member, has caused her to resign her post as the consequences of her nude picture being circulated to the public through MMS. This incident strongly intrude her personal life and privacy. Indirectly, people have conspired to undermine her credibility as Selangor state exco member. In my point of view, she is the victim afterall, we should not

point our fingers at her by saying that she hasn't performing her work ethically.There were the possibilities that some protestors might want to pull her down from her current position by using this scandal. Elizabeth indeed needs a huge courage to overcome this challenges. I have read her blog which stated that she's leaving Malaysia as she felt it's humiliated after receiving the further notice by the media they will continue to publish even more graphical, sensational stories of her private life. Can you imagine how stressful it is when you were in that situation? Longing for the need to rest and search for peace of mind, she hopes to get away all the stormy events surrounding her. It is the fact that everyone needs their own privacy, so do i. None of us will like people to invade our own space without noticing us. Since none of us like to be invaded, why can't the artists and politicians perceive the right to be left alone as well? If there isn't a deterrant law to take against the people who involving in intrution of privacy, how can we as a Malaysian feel safe enough to move around?

Image taken from http://ibspro.net/

Perhaps, some of us,especially girls, might worry that there was a hidden camera which was installed in public toilet/lifts or even changing rooms! This really happens around us, as there was a case where a man was fined only RM100 for taking a picture of a young girl urinating at a public toilet with his handphone cameara. Do you think that it is reasonable enough to charge that man for minimal money? I think that this kind of action should be reviewed to be appropriate with the times and damage that it caused (trauma especially). If the deter is not punished with any heavy penalty, there will definitely be more future offenders who will slowly divulge our privacy life, none of us will know when are we going to be the next target. . .

Phish Your Money/Password!

Taken from: Dailybits.com

According to Wikipedia, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Phishing often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. One of the example as below:
Taken from: netforbeginners.about.com

Let me ask you a simple question: Will you give your bank account password or email password to everyone? It's definitely NO!! So, do i.

So, since it's impossible for the phisers to get it fromyou, they have no choice but to take extra steps to trick us into giving up all those important and private information. This kind of deceptive attempt to get information is called social engineering. It is exactly same as an act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.

Another example is Suppose you check your e-mail one day and find a message from your bank. You've gotten e-mail from them before, but this one seems suspicious, especially since it threatens to close your account if you don't reply immediately. What do you do? You should not straight away give your personal information to the suspicious site. Instead, you can call your nearest bank to inquire about that. Calling to make a clarification is better than lossing all your valuable information, especially password to all those phisers.

Phishing not just through email, instant messages, SMS, Chat Rooms, Fake Banners, Fake Job search site are also part of the phisers platform of sources.

Most phishing messages will tend to prompt the victim to reply promptly. If he/she doesn't want to lose the money/kicked out by certain account, they will just straight away reply the phishing messages, and there it goes.. the information and data are all collected by the mastermind of phisers. If you are lucky, you can recognize that you didn't purchase anything from that particular site and you won't prompt a reply to them. However, if you are one of the shoppers from particular online store, and coincidently you just purchased an item from there, you will likely assume that it was specially dedicated for you. So some of us who are vulnerable to it will reply before investigating.

According to ACP Mohd Kamaruddin Md Din, head of Cyber and Multimedia Investigation Division, in Malaysia, no one has been arrested for crimes related to e-mails although 40 people have been arrested for the SMS scams. Kamaruddin says the syndicates involved in these crimes have dedicated tasks for each member. Normally, the phishing happened where one member would be tasked to send out SMS, while another member would be in charge of checking the accounts
There is a news of "Phish,Your Money Gone", where a 34-year-old executive of an oil and gas company received an e-mail last September purportedly from her bank, asking her to update her account because it was upgrading its server.Without hessitation, she entered all her details, and few days later, she lost RM4100. The message tend to look genuine, and it's really hard to tell that the website is fake, especially for her who only use Internet for working purposes. Hence, it is really important for the banks with the help of the police to set up a special unit and seek the help of Interpol to trace the fraudsters.
Here is one of the site where i found very interesting, you can start a QUIZ to test how well are you in recognizing all those Phisihing and Spam mails.

An Agreement

Whenever we want to deal something from others, an agreement is the key point to make an exchange/ deal successful. For example, if you want to trade an item A with an item B which belongs to others, u need to wait for both parties agreement before you start to trade. Hence, in order to make the deal more efficient, contracts are held in between the parties. It can be made quite informally as well, oral terms can also be bind with certain condition.

Contract it self means that it is legally enforceable (binding)agreement between two or more competent parties. The most important feature of a contract is that one party makes an offer for an arrangement that another accepts. In order to create a contract, there must be an intention of the parties to enter into legal relations which it is anticipated can be enforced in a court of law. Otherwise, in the eyes of the law, such relationships often do not constitute a binding contract.

Here is one of the case which taken from Malay Mail, entitled "HOTLINE: Hired, but without a contract"on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009.

ANTHONY claims he has been denied money due to him after he resigned as a lorry driver, for a job he took on despite not being issued with an employment contract.

He complained that he earned a limited salary as a lorry driver but the workload is out of expectation, including delivering vegetables and unloading supplies. The manager even paid him due salary, refusing give him overtime allowance. And now, his employer require Anthony to pay for resigning according to Employment Act, in fact, he doesn't even have any official letter offer from employer.
Later, the supply manager admits that there was no offer letter given to the employees as the company is a small scale company. He even complaint that Anthony performance was questionable and does not meet the requirement. He also added that Anthony did not notify them when he quit.

The Labour Department said an officer had advised both parties on the matter. And with no appointment letter issued, the dispute was handled in accordance with the Employment Act.

Since ANTHONY failed to give sufficient notice of resignation to his employer, he was liable to pay his employer an indemnity in lieu of the period of notice due. However, this had become debatable since ANTHONY was not issued with an appointment letter.

Also, the officer said, the employer can be issued with a notice or a compound for not providing its workers with appointment letters.

In my opinion, according to Employment Act 1955,Section 12(2) The length of termination notice shall be the same for both employer and employee and shall be determined by a provision made in writing for such notice in the term of the contract of service, or, in the absence of such provision in writing, shall not be less than:

(a) four weeks' notice if the employee has been so employed for less than two years on the date on which the notice is given;

(b) six weeks' notice if he has been so employed for two years or more but less than five years on such date;

(c ) eight weeks' notice if the has been so employed for five years or more on such date;

provided that this section shall not be taken to prevent either party from waiving his right to a notice under this subsection.

So, Anthony should not just quit the job as he likes. Though there was no legal offer letter to him, he should understand that the manager will surely sue him under the Employment Act, making him to be liable.
On the other hand, the manager should not use the reason of "small scale company" as a reason for not giving out an official letter for the employees to work. Though verbal agreement is able to work, however, when things go wrong, black and white copy is always needed as a reference for evidence.
Besides, the manager should not simply claim that Anthony is not performing good in his job. If the manager did not offer him a contract and state the job specification clearly to him, he has no right to blame that Anthony is not satisfying the manager's expectation.
It really needs a contract to bind the employees in order for them to know what is the Term and Condition applied. Hence, the manager has the power or proof to show the contract which employees signed and it is usable to report them to the labor department if they misbehaved.
After all, documenting the important contract between both parties involved are always necessary for the harmony of a business/dealing/employment.

Crime

During the tutorial session, Mr Sonny mentioned about the crime issue which i found out very interesting. He mentioned about the mens rea and actus reus which are related to the crime offenders. Mens rea literally translated from the Latin means guilty mind.

According to the Law Teacher website, The general basis for imposing liability in criminal law
is that the defendant must be proved to have committed a guilty act whilst having had a guilty state of mind. The physical elements are collectively called the actus reus and the accompanied mental state is called the mens rea.

According to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, killing just one person or thousands at once constitutes the same offence - it is still an act of murder, a crime deserving of the most severe punishment. In Malaysia, the accused must actually kill someone, and intend that he is killing someone, in order to be guilty in the murder. There is a case where a maid attempted murder on her employer by adding poison in the soup and coffee. In the end, the offence, under Section 307 (1) of the Penal Code, carries a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine, or up to 20 years if the act had resulted in injuries to the intended person. In my opinion, if the employer passed away due to venomous of drink/food, the offender shall be sentence to death!

On the other hand, one is free from moral blame for causing a harm to another if one neither intended to cause such a harm. Murder is a species of homicide and therefore homicide is not always a murder. This is accepted by English and Islamic Law. According to Law of Murder, Homicide is the killing of human being by another human being. It is either lawful or unlawful. Lawful Homicide includes justifiable homicide where the death is caused by a person under mistake of fact, believing that he is either bound or justified by law. Besides, if he or she is doing an act likely to cause harm but without a criminal intend or acting in private defense. Moreover, excusable homicide also includes cases where the death is caused by accident/misfortune without any criminal intention or knowledge in doing lawful act. A child/or person of unsound mind/intoxicated person also bound under excusable homicide. In 2008, there was a case where an Indonesian was sentenced to five years' jail for burrying his newborn baby alive. He was plead guilty to the charge under Section 304b of the Penal Code, charging with committing unintentional homicide on the baby. Under Malaysian Law, Law of Murder is governed by Section 300 of the Penal Code.

As for the case of murder of Tengku Teh Susilawati,20, by former policeman Abdul Halim Hassan got only seven years’ jail. Such punishment caused the furious of the mother of Susilawati. In her point of view, seven years’ jail can never compare to what he did. She would rather want the court to sentence him for death penalty! The family is still upset over the cruel murder crime which the offender had done to their daughter. Though they have learnt to accept the fate, it is still a tough situation where they have to admit the loss of Sulawati.
Overall, murder crime is an issue that need to be upheld seriously by the judge so that the offender can be punished seriuosly with what they have done. It is the issue of justice that can keep the society in shape in relation with the progression towards a zero crime society.

Unsafe Situation

Snatch theft in Malaysia is in the increasing rate lately. It happens all the time all around the places. It happens just in a blink of our eyes, it can be 10 seconds or 30 seconds, depending on the situation.The snatch thief might sits in the car, grabbing a lady's handbag from the car's window, dragging the lady and her handbag along until the victim gives up! and they sped off in a hurry.
Another technique is where the man accused the woman of hitting his vehicle and demanded for reimbursement. The woman will be forced to stop at nearby to settle the case. Here, the snatch thieves can easily take action of grabbing the woman's possession. Sometimes, the victim might successfully give chase on them. However, if the luck is not on our side, we might be facing life danger. For example, the case of Jamilah Selamat, who is a pregnant woman, was killed when her bag was snatched while she was riding on her motorcycle. Due to the killing of 2 lives under the snatch crime, the suspect will be be charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the death penalty.


Besides the proper precautions can be taken into action, police officers do play an important role in curbing the crimes. Johor police have formed a special squad, known as Ninja Squad by the public in order to reduce the cases of roadside robberies in the city. It is called as Ninja as the police equipped with KAwasaki KLX250 scrambler motorcycles, patrol the streets wearing full-faced helmets, jeans and boots. The special unit has trained in the deep jungle before in order to let them adapt to their new high-powered motorcycles. We, as a Malaysian do hope that the "Ninja" can really help us in tackling the snatch theft crimes, letting the prosecutor suspects face the justice of law.

In addition to the patrol of the police, installation of security alarm in strategic location in the middle of walkways can also be used by public in any snatch cases. The public will just have to press on the alarm, alerting the police officers nearby.

On top of that, installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) by ensuring the CCTV operational runs effectively can also be used in order to prevent the snatch crimes. For example, the intallation of CCTV cameras in the specific area of Putrajaya enable the cityconstantly under the watchful eye of the vigilant police officers to detect criminals apart form monitoring traffic.

After all, women must be alert for their own expensive stuffs especially handbag. Proper way of taking care is important. Try not to bring along the handbag which can lure the attention of others, in addition, remember not to sling your handbag on your shoulder while walking on the busy roads, as you might be the next target for the snatch thieves!

Street Demo

Have anyone of you encountered street demonstration? As for me, i've experienced ONCE~ this happened when my car passed by a company, all the employees were holding a cardboard or banner stating how unfair they were treated and other negative sentences which degrade the image of the company.

Street demonstration can be considered as part of Malaysian tradition when they face a problem and the problem was not taken in proper consideration. This may include a protest towards Government, for example people tend to demand a change from a government that neglect minorities,seeking a better change whenever government fails to address the economic which indirectly neglect the community. Besides, street demonstration can also included animal activist, environmental activist, workers protest against their company and so on.
According to a poll from The Star Online," Is holding a street demonstration the right forum to address issues?" 39% of people voted as depending on the issue; whereas 33% of people stated that it is a right issue.
I've no idea why whenever people mention about Street Demonstration, most of us will definitely link to the idea of it's VIOLENT! it's a THREAT! However, sometimes, a peaceful street demonstration is just a way for specific community to utter their ways of thinking. For example, The case of residents in Sandakan proposed the rejection towards Coal-fired Power Plant in Sandakan did not create any threat towards the society instead such protest received another high-ranked position Chairman to join in as he thinks that it is reasonable!

On the other hand, whenever there are a large scale of street demonstration, it will definitely gain the attention from the Police and even the Government! such as the case of 2,000 protesters, which was organised by the Movement for the Abolition of the Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, known by its Malay acronym of GMP has lead to the police to fire tear gas into the crowd.

In Malaysia, everyone has the right and freedom to peaceful assembly. Hence, the people in charge who is always against the street demo should not straight away take a harsh action towards them without listening to their problem! If the upper layer of organization deny the right of demonstrate without taking into the consideration of a cause/reason of demonstration, it is surely a guilt for a particular party. In conclusion, a demonstration without violence, should be acceptable in our country. The parties involved must also be responsible towards their actions. No harm will occur if it is just a way to express the the feelings of community!

Maids are HUMAN too!

The issue of maids abuse are happening all around us, mainly Indonesian maids flee their cruel employers every year.

Most of the maids went over to Malaysia just to seek for a good opportunity of working environment, hoping to work for a caring and loving families. However, luck is not always on everyone's side. If one of the maid is lucky, she might be able to work with a good and understanding employer who might even treat her as their own family members!
Some of the good employers even buy new clothes for their maids, the maids need not spend a single cents of her own! I believe this is most of the maids' dream house!
On the other hand, some of the maids are being tortured during work time. Suffering from boiling water, torturing and starving for the whole day, the maids not even dare to utter a single complain towards their employers!
Some of the employers even took away the maids' handphone, hoping that the maids can fully concentrate on the works! No entertainment or leisure is given to them! they are being treated as a 24-7 "working machine". One of the case which brings up the concern of the society is the Indonesian maid, Siti Hajar, who is being anguish by her employer, a 43-year-old single mother. She is a Muslim, and yet her employer still fed her with Non-Muslim food, worst still gave her a plate of white rice as her meal!
In my opinion, maids do have feelings. If the employers continuously mistreat them, they might be hatred towards the employers. When the emotions couldn't hold back for any longer, the maids might do something bad just to protect themselves! for example, they might abuse the employers' kids exactly the same way as the employers did to them.
If we want someone to work for us within the house, we must pay some respect to them, treating them the way we want people to treat us!
It is especially common to hear that some of the maids are not allow to take any leaves within the year, even a day off are not allowed! It is actually against the the Article 24, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which reads: "Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."
It is absolutely true that none of us can endure a stressful work for a long period! a proper holiday should be given to them, or even bring the maids along whenever there is any family trips going on. This will be a great time to improve the relationship between the maids with the employer! The maids will definitely feel that they are being treated as part of the family members. In this case, they will for sure out perform their given task.
Keep it in mind that, be grateful to people who work for us, they are the person who make our life easy~

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise to a maid! a simple word of "WELL DONE!", "I'm GLAD that you've REMEMBERED!" do mean something great to them!

Rules were set!

Law -- Any set of uniform principles that govern and regulate human behavior .

Without doubt, law shapes our politics, economics and societies. There are numerous types of law such as Constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, contract law, tort law, civil law, religious law and so on. The emergence of law allow the human rights, binding the people within the society. Human rights can be defined as the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. This includes , The right to vote freely, Freedom of Religion,Freedom from Torture, Freedom of Speech,Freedom from Discrimination, Homosexual Rights and so on.

It is common to expect that the law usually requires the rules, sovereignty and enforcing power which usually leads to the punishment! In Malaysia, especially illegal immigrants will receive canning as their punishment for violating the laws. Since the amendments of Malaysia Immigration Act came into force in 2002, more than 35,000 illegal migrants have been caned. Such punishment has lead to a hot topic within the society when the case of a Muslim model, Kartika was found guilty of consuming alcohol in the hotel (2008). It is indeed the first time of using caning sentence for Muslim woman who violate the country's religious laws.
Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director ever said that canning is a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is prohibited under international human rights law. He even highlights the need for the Malaysian government to stop the practice of caning.
On the other hand, Professor Dr Badruddin Ibrahim, Head of Islamic Law Department accused that caning sentence was against individual freedom. He continued saying that caning under the Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment was different than the caning implemented by the civil courts. It was done using moderate force as the hand must not be over the head so as not to injure the skin while the offender was fully clothed.
Though the same punishment of canning was implement on the Muslim violators, the
consequences of the news is different towards the society in comparison with the canning towards the illegal immigrants. When Kartika's news were spread around, everyone is paying attention on the topics of human rights;
In contrast, when the news of immigrants being reported as some of the detainees claimed that they were not given any treatment later after being canned. Some of us will just ignore it!

The cane indeed cuts through the detainee's skin..

Is it due to the fact that the issue of Kartika is involving a women, especially a Muslim?
It is a tradition in our mind set that women aren't suppose to be canned, no matter how serious the crimes she has committed on. However, we never come across the idea of without canning the woman might not feel the fear?
In a nutshell, neither of us is allow to challenge against the laws nor the simple ground rules set by any parties. If anyone of us do so, be prepared to face the consequences with no guilt!