Next year, the Crime and Justice Research Centre will co-host the Crime and Justice in Asia and the Global South International Conference with the Asian Criminological Society. The conference will be held in Cairns from 10-13 July 2017 and will feature international speakers:
- Professor Rosemary Barberet;
- Professor Jiahong Liu;
- Professor John Braithwaite; and
- Professor Raewyn Connell.
To showcase the diversity of topics that will be presented during the conference, each week the CJRC blog will feature an accepted abstract from a presenter.
This week’s featured abstract is authored by PhD candidate Haezreena Begum Binti Abdul Hamid from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Featured abstract:
“The Narratives of Trafficked Female Migrants in Government Protection Shelter Home 5 – Exploration of the Rescue Process and Protective Custody of Trafficked Women”
This paper provides an insight into the trafficked women’s experiences of being rescued by the enforcement officers and held in the government shelter to facilitate case prosecution and repatriation process. This research was conducted at a government-run shelter home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in a span of 4 weeks (mid-April to mid-May 2016). Throughout this period of time, 43 participants were interviewed comprising of 30 trafficked female migrants from 7 different nationalities and 13 professionals from Malaysia. The main objective of this research is to explore the victim identity that has been accorded to the women and if the rescue process and protective custody was something they sought. During the interview session, most of the women became emotional as they expressed their sadness and discomfort of having to endure their day to day lives in an overcrowded shelter, feeling bored and helpless, and uncertain of their date of repatriation. Many of them expressed their anger and dissatisfaction towards the police for ‘saving’ them and didn’t think they needed to be rescued from their workplace and placed in protective custody. However, there were several women who expressed their gratitude towards the authorities for rescuing them because they initially thought that they will be returned to their home countries but eventually find themselves placed in a shelter-home for a lengthy period of time. The findings of this research attempts to question the effectiveness of the rescue process conducted by the authorities and protective custody of women who have been trafficked into Malaysia.
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