COMMENT | It is International Human Rights Day today and Malaysia, recently elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the term beginning 2022, will commence its role as a country in disgrace.

We are blacklisted by the US State Department in its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2021 – a shameful downgrade to the lowest point we previously reached in 2009 and 2015.

During the global pandemic alone, six Malaysian companies have had their goods banned from being imported into the US over allegations of forced labour in their operations.

Among them were public listed companies like Top Glove, Sime Darby Plantation, and FGV Holdings.

This consistency, like red marks on a human rights report card, is reflective of a government that places very little priority on human rights and has even less interest in making big improvements.

However, the launch of the National Action Plan on Forced Labour...