KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - The irony is that willing sex workers confess to being trafficked women when they are caught in police raids while the real trafficked women deny their status.

Many of the "professional" sex workers are said to be from the Philippines and China while those from other neighbouring countries are the "sex slaves".

The professionals from these two countries know that there are rich pickings to be had in Malaysian brothels, said Tenaganita Sdn Bhd coordinator for Anti-Trafficking in Persons, Aegile Fernandez.

However, the sex slaves from other regional countries are often ignorant women who are coerced or beaten into submission by members of the trafficking syndicates and readily "confess" to police that they are sex workers.

There is also the fear that the syndicates will harm their families back home.

"The police have a 14-day remand order to interview these victims but they are unable to achieve much," said Fernandez.

"In our shelters, it usually takes at least two months before they reveal anything.

"First, we must become their friends and confidants and only then, will they open up and tell us what exactly happened in the brothels and how they were brought in.

"We have cases of victims who had only spoken to us upon going back to their countries."

Fernandez said while it was true that some sex workers came into Malaysia voluntarily, the syndicates held their passports, curtailed their movements and did not pay them.

"This becomes human trafficking."

Malaysia, has been classified as Tier 3 by the United States State Department where human trafficking is concerned.

The Tier 3 classification means that Malaysia has made no effort to comply with the US Trafficking and Violence Protection Act.

Fernandez said there were also cases of exploitation in the case of mail-order brides.

Some Malaysian men in their 60s and 70s get married to young women from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

These women, who are in their early 20s, are what the mail-order agencies call "3-in-1" brides.

They are required to work at their offices or stalls run by their husbands in the morning, do housework in the afternoon and evening, and satisfy the sexual needs of their husbands at night.

There had been cases of mail-order brides forced to work in brothels to pay their husbands a monthly allowance of RM400 (S$163.2) to RM500.

The husbands apparently claimed this was payment for marrying them and bringing them into the country.