"Certainly human trafficking is a crime, and that has to be stopped. We will do whatever we can" to halt it, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters.

Abdullah said that the government has drafted a bill on fighting human trafficking, and that Parliament will soon debate it. Approval of the bill as a law is considered a formality.

Abdullah said the bill contains provisions "including punishments, which are very severe."

He said authorities hope it will reduce any human trafficking in Malaysia.

The government has not released details of proposed punishments, but said the new law would make it easier for police, immigration departments and other authorities to pursue, prosecute and convict alleged human traffickers.

In its annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," the U.S. State Department on Tuesday downgraded Malaysia from a watch list to a blacklist "for its failure to show satisfactory progress in combating trafficking in persons."

The report cited the Malaysian government's failure to prosecute and punish traffickers, to provide adequate shelters and services to victims, and to protect migrant workers from involuntary servitude.

Malaysia is among 16 countries on the U.S. list, which subjects them to possible sanctions for not doing enough to stop the yearly flow of about 800,000 people across international borders for the sex trade and other forms of forced and indentured labor.

About 80 percent of the victims are female and up to half of them children, and most are seeking to escape poverty.

On Wednesday, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the U.S. report failed to consider the country's efforts to protect foreign workers.

"I don't know how they can come up with that report. We can't react to something that does not take into account what we are doing. It is unfortunate that they pass judgment on us," Syed Hamid was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper's Thursday edition.

"No single country can act as the investigator, prosecutor and judge against another," Syed Hamid said.

A ministry spokeswoman reached by phone said she could not confirm the comments. Calls to request an interview with Syed Hamid were not immediately answered.

Tenaganita, a local nonprofit organization, agreed that Malaysia did not adequately protect foreign migrants and domestic workers, upon which the country relies heavily for menial work.

"In reality we really haven't done very much. We still have a very far way to go," said Aegile Fernandez, coordinator of Tenaganita's program to combat human trafficking.

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