THE Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (Mapo) will expand its cooperation with international airlines in the fight against human trafficking in the country.

Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed said this was because human trafficking syndicates found it more convenient to do their work by air than by land and sea.

“So far we have worked with two local airlines, namely Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia, and are expanding the cooperation to Malindo Air.

“The crew and staff are trained to identify passengers who are suspected of being victims of human trafficking by various means, including by looking at their body language, before alerting the airport security personnel,” he said.

He was speaking as a guest at Bernama Radio’s Ala Carte Pagi programme.

Nur Jazlan said the authorities would also tighten security to identify syndicate groups at departure and arrival at the airport, heeding the United Nations’ (UN) call for action to prevent human trafficking.

He said the syndicates used low-cost carrier services to smuggle into Malaysia people from neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines as sea and land travel was deemed risker and time-consuming.

Nur Jazlan said the 1,124 trafficking victims rescued in 2016 were still   in shelters while the data on victims rescued last year was still being tabulated.

“Most of those rescued are women from neighbouring countries used as sex slaves,” he said. – Bernama, January 5, 2018.