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Members of a Malaysian religious group accused of human trafficking and child sexual abuse continued to commit crimes even after a major police crackdown, authorities said. The Islamic World Ikhwan Group (GISB) made international headlines in September when police rescued 402 minors suspected of abuse in 20 nursing homes. Authorities arrested 171 suspects at the time, including teachers and caregivers. But more details about the group’s alleged crimes have since emerged, leading to hundreds more arrests. These include allegations that five GISB members continued to traffic people as late as October 1 to exploit them through the threat of forced labor. Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual and physical violence. Two of the defendants were managers of a GISB-owned resort in the southern state of Johor. They were charged on Sunday with four counts of human trafficking involving three women and one man aged between 30 and 57. The third, an employee of the same resort, was charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old. At least two other suspects remain at large in the case, which took place between August 2023 and Oct 1, 2024. Hundreds of other victims, aged between one and 17, are said to have suffered various forms of abuse in GISB-affiliated care homes. Police said some children were allegedly sodomized by their guardians and forced to perform sexual acts on other children. At a press conference on Monday, GISB’s lawyers denied the allegations of illegal business activities and organized crime and called for a “fair investigation” while the police investigation continues. But the company’s CEO, Nasiruddin Mohd Ali, has previously acknowledged that there had been “one or two cases of sodomy” at the nursing home. “Indeed there have been one or two cases of sodomy, but why are they being lumped together?” Nasiruddin said in a video posted to the company’s Facebook page.
GISB has hundreds of businesses in 20 countries, operating in sectors such as hospitality, food, and education. It is also linked to the religious sect Al-Arqam, banned by the Malaysian government in 1994 over concerns over differences in Islamic teachings. Khawla Asherali, daughter of Al-Arqam founder Asherali Muhammad, is a member of GISB but denied that the group still follows her late father’s teachings. The Malaysian lower house of parliament held a special motion on Tuesday to discuss issues related to GISB, with government ministers highlighting several findings made since the children were rescued from the orphanage last month. Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail told the hearing that some children are taken from their families as young as two years old and forced to work under the pretext of “practical training”. He also said that they were sometimes forced to do hundreds of squats as punishment for “indiscipline”. “If they did something wrong, for example for the simple reason of not doing the right thing, they were punished with 500 ketuk ketampi (squats) instead of 100,” Saifuddin said, according to a report by local media The Star. “According to the assessment by psychologists from the police D11 unit or the social welfare department, these children had lost their parents,” he added. “Some of them don’t even know them,” Saifuddin said police operations against the GISB have so far led to the arrest of 415 people and the rescue of 625 children. Malaysian authorities have also expanded their investigation into the GISB internationally, seeking Interpol’s assistance.
