If the new Police Commissioner wishes to be taken seriously in terms of his declared commitment to brook no nonsense from anybody, the first thing he has got to do is launch a proper, thorough criminal investigation into the suspect operation that is Leisure Clothing.

The current prosecution - which only happened by default because a few employees were caught trying to escape with false papers as the company had taken their passports - is not enough.

There is clearly a lot going on there that is too terrible to grasp, and which is yet absurdly being taken for granted and excused on the basis that "this is how Chinese people behave and they are used to it so why bother". It is as though we think it entirely normal for an employer to sequester the passports of employees while also holding their money. Aside from the fact that retaining somebody else's passport, whether with the consent of the other person or not, is a criminal act (the company can always force its employees to say that they allow their employers to hold their money), there is no conceivably justifiable reason for an employer to do anything of the sort. The obvious question has to be asked: why is Leisure Clothing holding its non-Maltese employees' passports as well as their money, if not to prevent them from fleeing the country?

The magistrate who is hearing the case, ticked off the prosecution for, "failing to bring evidence of human trafficking". He may have been misquoted, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but when migrant workers are brought in to a foreign country on the basis of false promises, have their passport taken from them immediately on arrival so that they cannot leave, have their earnings retained while they are given peanuts as pocket money, and then have their every move controlled between factory and dormitory barracks, while working inhumane hours, you are looking at human trafficking. The only difference between this and the identical way in which women are trafficked into Malta for sex is that one lot work in a legal factory while the other lot work in illegal brothels. But the fact that a clothes factory has been set up according to law while a brothel is not, does not change the context of human trafficking or the illegality of their working conditions and the gross violation of their human rights.

I am glad that the Vietnamese workers testifying in the ongoing case are being advised by human rights lawyers Katrine Camilleri and Michael Camilleri, who have taken up many cases involving the rights and abuse of immigrants in Malta. It should console us that they are in good hands and that they will not be manipulated or bullied. It is bad enough that Leisure Clothing has its emissaries in the courtroom to put up a challenging and intimidating presence, including outbursts of disapproving sounds when its former employees are testifying. The magistrate should put a stop to that.

The testimony of the courtappointed auditor, Marisa Ciappara, a few weeks ago, constituted a news story in itself, and should not have been buried in the overall context of a report from the courts. She described the complete mess in the records at Leisure Clothing, with unfiled and random payment slips and a total mismatch between the money Leisure Clothing is supposed to be holding for its employees and the amount of money it actually does have. She told the court that the company does not have the money to pay the employees even the amount the company itself claims to owe them, and that if the employees were to be paid what they should be paid (you cannot pay people below the legal minimum) Leisure Clothing would not be able to carry on in business.

Her testimony was damning, yet it has not resurfaced in any news story since. It should be brought up each time there is a news report on Leisure Clothing. And yet none of this should have been a surprise. Bortex shut down its Malta operation and laid off its Maltese sewing-machine operators because the enterprise was no longer viable. Overnight, Leisure Clothing moved into the factory which Bortex and its Maltese employees had just vacated, with a contingent of Asian workers, and carried on where Bortex had left off, including subcontracting for Bortex on orders which, until then, Bortex had been producing directly itself.

If Bortex couldn't keep its Maltese operation going with Maltese employees paid within the law, then how could Leisure Clothing do it and on top of that, also allow enough price leeway for those who subcontracted orders to charge a commission on top of what Leisure Clothing charged them? The only way in which this is possible is through gross abuse: working labourers on straight 14-hour shifts every day of the week including Sunday and paying them slave wages in violation of the law. I don't think Ms Ciappara could have been clearer in her testimony that Leisure Clothing would not be viable if it were to adhere to the law. It therefore follows that Leisure Clothing is in business only because it is routinely breaking the law.

The fact that it is the Chinese government which owns this factory - and it is the Chinese government which is violating human rights and breaking the law on Maltese territory - is not to be discounted. When it is a state which commits such violations on the territory of another state, the implications are far more serious than if it were an individual or private enterprise. That it is China which is committing these violations on Maltese soil makes it even less likely that the government has an interest in stopping the violations or upsetting the factory-owners. And that's why the Police Commissioner has got to prove to us that he will fight it without fear or favour. Otherwise, it's John Dalli and the Farrugia brothers all over again.

Gross abuse of the vulnerable is a terrible thing. It is not to our credit at all that we are not angrier about it and louder in demanding that a serious investigation be conducted into the activities of Leisure Clothing.