Brunei Issues - 2024

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Disputes - international

none identified

Refugees and internally displaced persons

stateless persons: 20,863 (2022); note - thousands of stateless persons, often ethnic Chinese, are permanent residents and their families have lived in Brunei for generations; obtaining citizenship is difficult and requires individuals to pass rigorous tests on Malay culture, customs, and language; stateless residents receive an International Certificate of Identity, which enables them to travel overseas; the government is considering changing the law prohibiting non-Bruneians, including stateless permanent residents, from owning land

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List — Brunei does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so, therefore Brunei was upgraded to Tier 2 Watch List; key achievements included referring two alleged traffickers for prosecution, including one Bruneian national, identifying and providing assistance to 14 victims, opening two shelters for victims, and signing a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding with Bangladesh on recruitment of migrant workers; however, the government did not effectively screen for trafficking among foreign nationals in commercial sex and migrant workers; officials handled some potential trafficking cases administratively, if at all, and probably inappropriately detained, prosecuted, and deported potentially unidentified sex and labor trafficking victims; for the sixth consecutive year, the government did not convict any traffickers under its anti-trafficking law, and other laws that could be used to prosecute traffickers did not provide sufficiently stringent sentences (2023)

trafficking profile: human traffickers exploit foreign victims in Brunei; some men and women who migrate to Brunei to work in domestic service, retail, or construction work are subject to involuntary servitude, debt-based coercion, contract switching, non-payment of wages, passport confiscation, physical abuse, or confinement; some female migrants entering Brunei on tourist visas are forced into prostitution, and some Kenyan women reportedly faced forced labor in Brunei; workers from Bangladesh and China may have been forced to work in Brunei at Chinese-run projects; some traffickers use Brunei as a transit point for victims used for sex and labor trafficking in Malaysia and Indonesia; Anti-LGBTQI+ laws place some LGBTQI+ individuals at higher risk; trafficking experts in Brunei have received threats from traffickers (2023)

Illicit drugs

drug trafficking and illegally importing controlled substances are serious offenses in Brunei and carry a mandatory death penalty

NOTE: The information regarding Brunei on this page is re-published from the 2024 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Brunei 2024 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Brunei 2024 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.