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PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECTION
U.S. EMBASSY
PRESS RELEASE |
June
18, 2009 U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report on Indonesia
Bahasa
Indonesia
The Department places each country in the 2009 TIP Report onto one of
the three tier lists as mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act (TVPA) of 2000. The TVPA guides efforts to combat human
trafficking. Governments that fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum
standards are placed on Tier 1. Governments that are making significant
efforts to meet the minimum standards are placed on Tier 2. Governments
that do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making
significant efforts to do so are placed on Tier 3
INDONESIA (Tier-2)
Indonesia is a major source of women, children, and men trafficked for
the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. To a
far lesser extent, it is a destination and transit country for foreign
trafficking victims. The greatest threat of trafficking facing
Indonesian men and women is that posed by conditions of forced labor and
debt bondage in more developed Asian countries – particularly Malaysia,
Singapore, and Japan – and the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia,
according to IOM data. Indonesian women and girls are also trafficked to
Malaysia and Singapore for forced prostitution and throughout Indonesia
for both forced prostitution and forced labor. Each of Indonesia’s 33
provinces is a source and destination of human trafficking; the most
significant source areas are, in descending order: Java, West
Kalimantan, Lampung, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Banten, South
Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara, and North Sulawesi.
Trafficking of young girls, mainly from West Kalimantan, to Taiwan as
false brides, persists; upon arrival, many are coerced into
prostitution. A new trend identified during the last year was the
trafficking of dozens of Indonesian women to Iraq’s Kurdistan region for
domestic servitude. Another trend was the use of abduction by
traffickers, particularly in trafficking young girls to Malaysia for
forced prostitution. Women from the People’s Republic of China,
Thailand, and Eastern Europe are trafficked to Indonesia for commercial
sexual exploitation, although the numbers are small compared with the
number of Indonesians trafficked for this purpose.
A significant number of Indonesian men and women who migrate overseas
each year to work in the construction, agriculture, manufacturing,
service (hotels, restaurants, and bars), and domestic service sectors
are subjected to conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. The
destinations for such trafficking are, in descending order: Malaysia,
Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Taiwan, Thailand,
Macau, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Mauritius, Yemen,
Palestine, Egypt, France, Belgium, Germany, Cyprus, Spain, the
Netherlands, and the United States. Some labor recruitment companies,
known as PJTKIs, operated similarly to trafficking rings, luring both
male and female workers into debt bondage, involuntary servitude, and
other trafficking situations. Some workers, often women intending to
migrate, became victims of trafficking during their attempt to find work
abroad through licensed and unlicensed PJTKIs.
These labor recruiters charge workers commission fees up to $3,000,
which often require workers to incur debt to work abroad, leaving some
of them vulnerable in some instances to situations of debt bondage.
PJTKIs also reportedly withheld the documents of some workers, and
confined them in holding centers, sometimes for periods of many months.
Some PJTKIs also used threats of violence to maintain control over
prospective migrant workers. Recruitment agencies routinely falsified
birth dates, including for children, in order to apply for passports and
migrant worker documents. Internal trafficking remains a significant
problem in Indonesia with women and children exploited in domestic
servitude, commercial sexual exploitation, and small factories.
Traffickers, sometimes with the cooperation of school officials, began
to recruit young men and women in vocational programs for forced labor
in hotels in Malaysia through fraudulent “internship” opportunities.
Indonesians are recruited with offers of jobs in restaurants, factories,
or as domestic workers and then forced into the sex trade. A new trend
noted this year was the recruitment of hundreds of girls and women for
work as waitresses in extractive industry sites in Papua who were
subsequently forced into prostitution. During the year, minor girls were
rescued in illegal logging camps in West Kalimantan, where they were
coerced into sexual servitude. Malaysians and Singaporeans constitute
the largest number of child sex tourists in Indonesia, and the Riau
Islands and surrounding areas operate a “prostitution economy,”
according to local officials. Child sex tourism is rampant in most urban
areas and tourist destinations.
The Government of Indonesia does not fully comply with the minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making
significant efforts to do so. The government improved its law
enforcement response to trafficking offenses and demonstrated that a
significant number of its trafficking prosecutions and convictions
involved labor trafficking offenses, the first time such disaggregation
in data has been reported. Moreover, it sustained strong efforts to
assist victims of trafficking through the funding of basic services and
referral of victims to those services and others provided by NGOs and
international organizations. The government showed insufficient
progress, however, in efforts to confront labor trafficking committed
through exploitative recruitment practices of politically powerful
PJTKIs. Also, there were few reported efforts to prosecute, convict, or
punish Indonesian law enforcement and military officials complicit in
human trafficking, despite reporting on such trafficking-related
corruption.
Recommendations for Indonesia:
Begin using the 2007 law to address the country’s largest trafficking
problem – labor trafficking, including debt bondage;
significantly
improve record of prosecutions, convictions, and sentences for labor
trafficking—including against labor recruitment agencies involved in
trafficking; re-examineexisting MOUs with destination countries to
incorporate victim protection; increase efforts to prosecute and convict
public officials who profit from or are involved in trafficking;
increase efforts to combat internal trafficking; enforce existing laws
to better protect domestic workers; and increase funding for law
enforcement efforts and forrescue, recovery and reintegration of
victims.
Prosecution
The Indonesian government showed overall progress in anti-trafficking
law enforcement efforts over the reporting period. Through a
comprehensive anti-trafficking law enacted in 2007, Indonesia prohibits
all forms of trafficking in persons, prescribing penalties of three to
15 years’ imprisonment. These penalties are sufficiently stringent and
commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape.
Police and prosecutors began using the new anti-trafficking law during
the reporting period; however, other laws were still used in cases
pending widespread implementation of the new law.
The Indonesian government prosecuted 129 suspected trafficking offenders
in 2008, an increase from 109 prosecuted in 2007. Similarly, convictions
in 2008 increased to 55 from 46 convictions in 2007. Fifty-eight of the
prosecutions and 9 of the convictions in 2008 were for labor trafficking
offenses. The average sentence given to convicted trafficking offenders
was 43 months, similar to the average sentence of 45 months in 2007.
Indonesian officials and local NGOs often criticized the police as too
passive in combating trafficking absent specific complaints.
Nevertheless, the 21-man Jakarta based national police anti-trafficking
task force worked with local police, the Ministry of Manpower, the
Migrant Workers Protection Agency, Immigration, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and NGOs to shut down several large trafficking organizations.
After receiving training from an international donor, the Jakarta police
set up an anti-trafficking unit and conducted a series of significant
investigations and arrests.
The ongoing two-part “Operation Flower,” which continued through 2008 in
11 provinces, targeted women and children trafficked for commercial
sexual exploitation. Exploitation by PJTKIs remained a serious problem
although several major joint police and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) raids
resulted in a number of such operations shutting down. Police assigned
liaison officers to Indonesian embassies in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia,
Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand to support law enforcement
cooperation with host governments, including trafficking investigations.
Indonesia’s national police cooperated with U.S. law enforcement
authorities in the investigation of suspected trafficking of Indonesians
to the United States for the purpose of forced labor and debt bondage.
Progress was noted in the government’s dismissing, disciplining or
prosecuting officials complicit in trafficking. Some immigration
officials, labor officers, and local government officials were arrested
for activities which abetted trafficking. Complicity in trafficking by
members of the security forces remained a serious concern during the
reporting period, and this often took the form of officials either
engaged directly in trafficking or facilitating it through the provision
of protection to brothels and prostitution fronts in discos, karaoke
bars, and hotels, or by receiving bribes to ignore the problem. In
addition, some local officials facilitated trafficking by certifying
false information to produce national identity cards and family data
cards for children to allow them to be recruited for work as adults
abroad and within the country. Some MOM officials reportedly licensed
and protected international labor recruiting agencies involved in human
trafficking. In return for bribes, some immigration officials turned a
blind eye to potential trafficking victims, failing to prevent out-bound
trafficking through due diligence in the processing of passports and the
application of immigration controls.
Some immigration officials also directly facilitated trafficking by
accepting bribes from PJTKIs to pass migrant workers to their agents at
Jakarta International Airport. Members of the police and military were
directly involved in the operation of brothels and fronts for
prostitution, including establishments that exploited child sex
trafficking victims. Despite the persistence of these reports attesting
to a serious problem of official complicity in trafficking, the
Indonesian government did not initiate new prosecutions of security or
other government personnel for involvement in or facilitation of
trafficking during the reporting period, though in June 2008 a former
national chief of police and an Indonesian diplomat were sentenced to
two and four years’ imprisonment, respectively, for their facilitation
of trafficking-related criminal activity.
Protection
Indonesia demonstrated strong efforts to protect victims of trafficking
in Indonesia and abroad; however, available victim services remain
overwhelmed by the large number of victims. The government operated 41
“integrated service centers” providing services to victims of violence,
including trafficking victims; four of these centers were full medical
recovery centers specifically for trafficking victims. The government
also relied significantly on international organizations and NGOs for
the provision of services to victims. Although most security personnel
did not employ formal procedures for the identification and referral of
victims among vulnerable groups, such as females in prostitution,
children migrating within the country, and workers returning from
abroad, some victims were referred on an ad hoc basis to service
providers.
Throughout 2008, the government set up 305 district-level women’s help
desks to assist women and child victims of violence, including
trafficking – an increase from 25 such desks existing in 2006.
Authorities at the Tanjung Priok seaport in Jakarta screened travelers
in order to identify victims of trafficking and refer them to
appropriate shelters and medical care facilities. The Indonesian
government provided some funding to domestic NGOs and civil society
groups that supported services for trafficking victims. Although the
government practiced a policy of not detaining or imprisoning
trafficking victims, some victims reportedly were treated as criminals
and penalized for prostitution activities. Some government personnel,
such as the Jakarta-based police anti-trafficking unit, encouraged
victims to assist in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking
cases; others were less solicitous of victims’ cooperation. In some
cases, police reportedly refused to receive trafficking complaints from
victims.
In mid-2008, the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of
Overseas Workers (BNP) opened a new terminal at Jakarta’s international
airport – Terminal 4 – dedicated to receiving returning Indonesian
workers. BNP and MOM officials at this terminal, which replaced the
older Terminal 3, screened returning migrants to identify those in
distress, though inadequate efforts were made to identify victims of
trafficking. Indigent victims returning through Terminal 4 were
sometimes forced to spend several days in the terminal until they could
find adequate funds for their transportation back to their community.
While the Legal Aid Society, an NGO, succeeded in curtailing the
practice of labor brokers picking up trafficking victims at Terminal 4
and forcing them back into debt bondage, traffickers adjusted by picking
up victims at the regular passenger terminal to which victims had been
diverted by corrupt immigration officials. Both BNP and MOM were largely
ineffective in protecting migrant workers from trafficking. Indonesia’s
Foreign Ministry continued to operate shelters for trafficking victims
and migrant workers at some of its embassies and consulates abroad.
During the past year, these diplomatic establishments sheltered
thousands of Indonesian citizens, including trafficking victims. The
Foreign Ministry sustained proactive efforts in protecting the rights of
trafficked migrant workers abroad.
Prevention
The Indonesian government made significant efforts to prevent
trafficking in persons during the reporting period. The government
continued some collaboration with NGOs and international organization
efforts to raise awareness of trafficking. The Ministry of Women’s
Empowerment (MOWE), as the government’s focal point and coordinator for
the National Anti-Trafficking Task Force, drafted a new 2009-2013
national plan of action on human trafficking. Several provinces and
districts established local plans of action and anti-trafficking
committees. The MOWE conducted anti-trafficking outreach education in 33
provinces in 2008. The national government showed little political will
to renegotiate a 2006 MOU with Malaysia which ceded the rights of
Indonesian domestic workers to hold their passports while working in
Malaysia.
The government made no reported efforts to reduce the demand for forced
labor or the demand for commercial sex acts during the last year.
Indonesian police cooperated with Australian and Swiss authorities to
arrest and deport two pedophiles sexually abusing children, and an
Indonesian court sentenced one Australian child sex tourist to eight
years’ imprisonment in February 2009. The government provided
anti-trafficking training to Indonesian troops prior to their deployment
abroad on international peacekeeping missions. Indonesia has not
ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
For more information about the U.S. Embassy’s activities please visit http://jakarta.usembassy.gov/. ###
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