RECALIBRATING THE FORCED LABOUR THRESHOLD IN MALAYSIA POST ATIPSOM 2022: A CONTINUUM-TO-THRESHOLD TEST
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31436/iiumlj.v34i1.1258Keywords:
Forced Labour, ATIPSOM 2022, Exploitation, Continuum-to-ThresholdAbstract
For years, the legal boundary between labour issues and the crime of forced labour in Malaysia remained a blurry grey zone. Under the original 2007 framework of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007 (ATIPSOM), prosecutors often faced the nearly impossible hurdle of proving coercion to secure a trafficking conviction. The 2022 ATIPSOM amendments have repealed the narrow definition of coercion and broadened the interpretation of exploitation. This article recalibrates the Malaysian forced labour threshold after the 2022 ATIPSOM amendment. It argues that pre-2022 case law developed a coercion-centred gatekeeping approach, while ATIPSOM 2022 restructures liability into an act-means-purpose model that requires a threshold test. Using doctrinal legal research, the article examines how Malaysian law conceptualises and applies the forced labour threshold; analyses selected case law to identify recurring judicial patterns on coercion, voluntariness, and evidential inference; and aligns the forced labour-trafficking framework with relevant law in Malaysia. This article then proposes a two-tier continuum-to-threshold test to identify when labour exploitation escalates from regulatory labour non-compliance into a criminal forced labour and trafficking related exploitation. It concludes that a recalibrated threshold test post-2022 amendment of laws improves classification consistency across labour, criminal and trafficking regimes as well as victim-centred remedies, while preserving judicial safeguards against ATIPSOM overreach in borderline labour disputes.
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