Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the
hands of traffickers Published
reports & articles from 2000 to 2025 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Indonesia.htm
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. Indonesia women and girls
are also trafficked to Malaysia and Singapore for forced prostitution and
throughout Indonesia for both forced prostitution and forced labor. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 Check
out a later country report here or a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Indonesia. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of particular
interest to you. Would you like to
write about Forced-Labor? Debt
Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to
the subject of Trafficking. Scan other
countries as well. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. HELP for Victims International Organization for
Migration ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Human Trafficking, Migrant
Labor Often Linked in Indonesia News Blaze, June 11,
2007 -- Source: U.S. Department of State iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2007/06/20070607164452dybeekcm0.7253229.html#axzz3BKE2hiUo [accessed 24 August
2014] More than 2.5 million
Indonesians from poorer regions support their families every year by
traveling overseas seeking work as domestic servants and laborers. Most work
in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, but hundreds of thousands of others also can be
found in Singapore, Japan, Syria, Kuwait, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Some of these
individuals find work through officially sanctioned recruiting agencies. But Susilo estimates that more than half of would-be migrant
workers bypass these programs for the deceptive ease of working through less
reputable recruiters who, like traffickers the world over, confiscate
passports, trap would-be workers with exorbitant loans to travel abroad and
force them into laboring in dangerous and abusive work environments in a
futile effort to repay their unmanageable debts before sending money home to
their families. Indonesia's
Footwear Workers Too Thin For Aerobics Charles Wallace, Los
Angeles Times, Tangerang, 17 October 1992 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] Suyatmi, a shy, 20-year
old factory worker, is too poor to know much about sneakers. She's never heard
of Bo Jackson and is too skinny to care about aerobics.
Her world consists of a rented, 5-foot sqaure room in a shantytown where she sits on the
concrete floor with three other young women.
Every day a t 7 a.m., Suyatmi
begins work at P.T. Hardaya Aneka Shoes Industry,
one of six companies in Indonesia making shoes for Nike Inc., the spectacurly successful U.S. sporting goods company. Her
production "line" of 30 workers produces 350 pairs of Nike's glitzy
footwear a day. Suyatmi
and her co-workers earn a base salary of 1,900 Indonesian rupiahs a day, the
equivalent of $1.15. Working a six-day week, with a least two hours of
overtime each day, she takes home about $17 per week. The company also gives
her lunch and a bus ride to work. "Some
days it's hard," she said. "But I'm just happy to have a job." ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Indonesia U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/indonesia/
[accessed 10 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR There were credible
reports that forced labor occurred, including forced and compulsory labor by
children (see section 7.c.). Forced labor occurred in domestic servitude and
in the mining, manufacturing, fishing, fish processing, construction, and
plantation agriculture sectors. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Child labor
commonly occurred in domestic service, rural agriculture, light industry,
manufacturing, and fishing. The worst forms of child labor occurred in
commercial sexual exploitation, including the production of child pornography
(also see section 6, Children); other illicit activities, including forced
begging and the production, sale, and trafficking of drugs; and in fishing
and domestic work. According to a 2019
National Statistics Agency report, there were approximately 1.6 million
children ages 10 to 17 working, primarily in the informal economy. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/indonesia/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 8 July
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? National,
provincial, and local authorities set standards for working conditions and
compensation, but enforcement is inconsistent. Indonesian workers are
trafficked abroad, including women in domestic service and men in the fishing
industry. 2017 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor Office of Child
Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, Bureau of International Labor
Affairs, US Dept of Labor, 2018 www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 29 April
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 527] Children, mostly
girls, are subjected to forced domestic work and commercial sexual
exploitation abroad, primarily in Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Middle East; within
the country, children are also subjected to forced domestic work and
commercial sexual exploitation, particularly in Batam,
Jakarta, Bali, Bandung, Bogor, Surabaya, and Medan. Research suggests between
70,000 to 80,000 children in Indonesia work in the commercial sex trade. (8;
46; 3; 2; 47) Children work in
tobacco farming, especially in the provinces of East Java, Central Java, and
West Nusa Tenggara, which exposes them to pesticides, long hours of work, and
extreme heat. (6; 3; 48; 11; 49) Children also work on palm oil plantations
tending the nursery, collecting fallen fallen palm
fruitlets, and spraying toxic herbicides to help adult laborers meet their
quotas and earn premium pay. (50; 51; 52; 3; 7). Human Trafficking
Escalates as World Economy Plunges Judy Lin for UCLA
Today, 6/5/2009 newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/trafficking-93715 [accessed 24 August
2014] A native of a tiny
Indonesian agricultural village, Ima and her family were among that country's
estimated 116 million citizens who subsist on less than $2 a day. As a teen,
she regularly traveled two hours to the city of Surabaya to bring in a little
money cleaning houses. During one such trip, she got an offer she couldn't
refuse. "A woman came to me and
said she had a cousin in L.A. who needed a nanny," Ima recalled.
"Would I go to the U.S. and work for her for $150 a month? 'Yes!' I told her. 'Of course!'" It was 1997, and
she was 17 when she excitedly arrived in L.A., only to have her
"employer" — an affluent Indonesian woman — confiscate Ima's
passport, tell her that she would receive her salary in a lump sum after two
years; work her 10-to-18 hours a day, seven days a week, as nanny and
housekeeper; and beat her – hitting her in the face and slamming her into
walls. Yet Ima was one of the lucky
ones. She wasn't raped, fed a meal of rice once a day or made to sleep in the
doghouse – as other victims have recounted. Combating Sex
Trafficking in Indonesia through Community Empowerment and Education Suma Mihardja, Rita Nur Suhaeti, Fitria Sun Pililie, and Alfonsa Ragha Horeng, 2008 www.academia.edu/3350385/POLICY_PAPER?email_work_card=view-paper [accessed 18
February 2022] The following are
recommendations to combat sex trafficking in Indonesia: (1) set zero
tolerance policies for sex trafficking; (2) set an abolitionist approach to
sex trafficking and prostitution; (3)redefine prevention; (4) end tolerance
for the illegal sex trade, including open advertising of criminal activity;
(5) redefine and rename police department units to combat sex trafficking;
(6) end discrimination against victims in arrest and prosecution of
trafficking and prostitution-related offenses; (7) increase criminal
investigation of exploiters; (8) train law enforcer to recognize exploiter behaviour and signs of victimization; (9) devise
strategies to combat different markets for victims;(10) review state
approaches to prostitution for effectiveness in reducing the demand for
victims and for eliminating the markets for victims. Guest Worker May
Lose Digits, Toes After Being Tied Up in Bathroom for a Month Hassan Adawi, Arab News, Jeddah, 23 March 2005 [accessed 12 July
2013] A 25 year-old Indonesian guest worker will have several of her fingers, toes and part of her right foot amputated because of gangrene after being tied up for a month in a bathroom by her Saudi sponsor. The Indonesian Embassy noted that 2,000 housemaids have been repatriated to Indonesia so far this year, with many alleging maltreatment, nonpayment of wages or physical abuse. Human trafficking
victims suffer from mental distress Panca Nugraha,
The Jakarta Post, Mataram, 02/04/2009 www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/04/human-trafficking-victims-suffer-mental-distress.html [accessed 13
February 2011] As many as 57 human
trafficking victims in West Nusa Tenggara have suffered from mental distress
and at one point were treated at Selagalas Mental
Hospital in Mataram, said the head of a group concerned
with the issue. "Some of them
are still being treated and the condition of the others is improving, but
they are still receiving outpatient treatment," Endang
Susilowati, director of the Mataram
Panca Karsa Foundation
(PPK Mataram), told The Jakarta Post on
Tuesday. Endang
said the 57 victims were among the 317 human trafficking victims under the
care of PPK Mataram during 2008, 80 percent of whom
are women and 40 percent of them children under the age of 18. Endang said the
victims were believed to have suffered severe trauma after being cheated,
exploited and abused during their ordeal, as well as being ashamed to return
to their home villages. Police discover new
mode of human trafficking ANTARA News,
Jakarta, January 24, 2009 www.indonezia.ro/crnews_jan09/dv01_012409.html [accessed 23 April
2012] Police have
discovered a new mode of human trafficking, eration
by kidnapping and drugging, National Police spokesman Insp Gen Abubakar Nataprawira said here
on Friday. "In the past, human
trafficking was carried out by flattery and offering the victims a job, but
now the perpetrators get their victims by kidnapping and drugging," Abubakar Nataprawira said. He made the statement commenting on human
trafficking from Indonesia to Malaysia through border crossing point of Entikong, West Kalimantan. Church slams daily
human trafficking and authorities’ complicity Mathias Hariyadi, AsiaNews, 09/19/2007 www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=10342&size=A [accessed 13
February 2011] Migrant women
abducted by criminal gangs, drugged and then put to work in prostitution
rings under false identities, often with complicity of corrupt local
officials and police officers is but one typical aspect of human trafficking
in Indonesia. Indonesian Police
Arrest 15 For Alleged Human Trafficking Malaysian National
News Agency, May 30, 2007 findarticles.com/p/news-articles/bernama-malaysian-national-news-agency/mi_8082/is_20070530/indonesian-police-arrest-15-alleged/ai_n51556237/ [accessed 21
November 2010] Indonesian police
have arrested 15 people for alleged trafficking of women and girls to
Malaysia who eventually ended up in the flesh trade and at nightspots. Its security and transnational crime
vice-director, Bachtiar Hasanudin
Tambunan, said the victims, mostly from West Java,
were promised restaurant jobs with large salaries before finding themselves
working in cafes, discotheques and brothels. Human Trafficking
Rate in Indonesia Still High Ninin Damayanti,
Tempo Interactive, Jakarta, 15 January, 2007 www.humantrafficking.org/updates/543 [accessed 13
February 2011] The commitment of
the Indonesian government in handling human trafficking is still considered
to be low. This can be seen from the
amount of human trafficking victims that keep increasing every year. Child trafficking
on rise in Indonesia Australian
Associated Press AAP, Dec 4 2006 www.theage.com.au/news/World/Child-trafficking-on-rise-in-Indonesia/2006/12/04/1165080872983.html [accessed 12 July
2013] Indonesian
authorities are battling a growing trade in child trafficking, including a
recent case where hundreds of babies were sold overseas, a report says. The report, by the Indonesian Ministry of
Women Empowerment, found that efforts to retrieve the children in baby
trafficking cases were flawed. The report said one
woman was caught in South Jakarta last year after having sold 880 babies
abroad. A further 25 babies were saved. Disasters Increase
Risk of Human Trafficking Rofiqi Hasan, TEMPO
Interactive, Denpasar, 08 November, 2006 | 18:10 WIB www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2006/11/08/brk,20061108-87306,uk.html [accessed 13
February 2011] polarisproject.org/blog/2017/09/natural-disasters-and-the-increased-risk-for-human-trafficking/ [accessed 29 April
2020] The crimes are many
forms: distribution of 880 babies from North Sumatra to Singapore by a
foundation, for instance. The babies,
she explained, were re-sold when they arrived in Singapore. If they were caught in action at sea, the
babies were often thrown out of board so as to wipe the evidence. US Official Urges
Indonesia to Crack Down on Human Trafficking Voice of America VOA
News, November 4, 2006 At one time this article
had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] www.voanews.com/archive/us-official-urges-indonesia-crack-down-human-trafficking [accessed 29 April
2020] On Saturday, at a
crisis center in Jakarta run by the International Organization for Migration,
Miller met with dozens of Indonesians who were forced to work in neighboring
Malaysia. He also spoke to reporters.
"They tell of agents here deceiving them, of employers over there
working them 15, 18 hours a day, of being beaten, of having their stomachs
stomped on. This is something we must all work together to stop," he
said. Miller says
Indonesians are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers because of the
country's poverty, widespread slavery rings, and lack of law enforcement due
to corruption. Bangka Belitung fertile ground for human
trafficking Antara
News, Pangkalpinang, September 18, 2006 [accessed 12 July
2013] Bangka Belitung
province is a fertile ground for the operations of human trafficking
syndicates as the world`s biggest tin producing region is also full of ecoomic activities facilitating their illegal practices,
a local women rights protection activist said. "People from different areas in
Indonesia who fell victims of human trafficking were initially offered good
jobs with good salaries but in the end they were forced into prostitution in
pubs or red-light districts," woman rights` protection activist Radmidha Dawam said here
Monday. Govt still weak in
protecting women from human trafficking Antara News,
09/13/06 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] The Indonesian
government is still weak in preparing and implementing laws against human
trafficking which has been harming women, Executive Director of the Centre
for Development of Female Resources (PPSW) Endang Sulfiana, said here Wednesday. Human trafficking
ring busted Deutsche Presse-Agentur (German Press Agency) DPA, Jakarta, 17
August, 2006 -- DPA www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=102933&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25 [accessed 13
February 2011] The victims, aged
14 to 17, were promised jobs in Jakarta as domestic workers, but were then
flown to West Kalimantan province on the Indonesian side of Borneo and taken
across the border into Malaysia, sometimes using false travel documents. Microsoft Partners
with Asian NGOs to Help in Fight Against Human Trafficking Xinhua News
Agency-PRNewswire, Singapore, June 16, 2006 – Source: Microsoft Corporation www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoft-partners-with-asian-ngos-to-help-in-fight-against-human-trafficking-70735537.html [accessed 13
February 2011] childhub.org/en/system/tdf/library/attachments/gilmore_08_microsoft_0309.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=18877 [accessed 29 April
2020] Microsoft Corp. has awarded over $US 1 million through its Unlimited Potential grants to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across six Asian countries. The latest round of grants will deliver IT training courses specifically for people in human-trafficking hot spots across the region - often women and children. Human trafficking has been described as "the emerging human rights issue of the 21st century" by the US State Department. The Unlimited Potential grants to help combat human trafficking were distributed in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and will deliver IT skills through training that enhance the employment prospects and economic conditions of people most vulnerable to, or already victimised by, human traffickers. Sex Trafficking
Growing in S.E. Asia Fayen Wong, Reuters, Singapore, April 26, 2005 At one time this article
had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] Girls from the villages of Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines are lured into cities or neighboring countries with promises of lucrative jobs as waitresses and domestic helpers, only to end up in massage parlors and karaoke bars. Others are flown as far as Australia, Japan, South Africa and the United States to be kept as slaves in brothels -- beaten, drugged, starved or raped in the first days of their reclusion to intimidate and prepare them for clients, the experts say. Indonesia moves to
preempt child trafficking after tsunami as UNICEF issues exploitation warning Bernard Hibbitts, Jurist Legal News and Research Services,
January 04, 2005 jurist.org/paperchase/2005/01/indonesia-moves-to-preempt-child.php [accessed 24 August
2014] The government of
Indonesia, concerned over reports of human trafficking in children in the
wake of last week's tsunami disaster off the west coast of the country that
killed over 100,000 and left other hundreds of thousands homeless, has now
placed restrictions on the transport of youngsters out of the country and has
brought special guards into refugee camps, directing local police commanders
to be on watch against abduction or other exploitation of children. Tsunami orphans
available for the right price Mathias Hariyadi, AsiaNews.it, 01/02/2005 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] Volunteers from the
Muslim-based Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) claim that "human
lives" are being bought and sold in some of the refugee camps in North
Sumatra's provincial capital of Medan.
Unidentified individuals have seemingly tried to buy tsunami-orphaned
children or children whose parents are missing in order to resell them. Confirmed Child
Trafficking in Indonesia George Nishiyama, Reuters, Jakarta, January 07, 2005 progressivetsunamihelp.blogspot.com/2005/01/confirmed-child-trafficking-in.html [accessed 13
February 2011] reliefweb.int/report/indonesia/indonesia-unicef-confirms-tsunami-child-trafficking-case [accessed 29 April
2020] "An NGO has
reported seven trafficking cases in Indonesia," Richard Danziger, head of IOM's counter-trafficking unit, told
Reuters. He declined to name the agency. US issues
guidelines to prevent human trafficking in tsunami-hit Asia Agence France-Presse AFP, Washington DC, Jan 5, 2005 www.terradaily.com/2005/050105220937.7m5e36g6.html [accessed 23 April
2012] The US State
Department said Wednesday it was issuing guidelines to officials and
volunteers in tsunami-hit Asia to prevent human trafficking which has become
a serious problem. The move came amid
reports that thousands of vulnerable children orphaned by the disaster face
the risk of being picked up by gangs of unscrupulous human traffickers. "I think that there are sufficient,
credible reports for us to conclude that this is a real danger and that
decisive action must be taken now to prevent abuse," State Department
spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. Call for legal
reforms to protect children in Indonesia Indonesia report,
ECPAT International At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] The report
highlights concerns about inconsistencies and gaps in the law, especially
with regard to the treatment and protection of children. For example,
prostitution is one of the main forms of commercial sexual exploitation of
children in Indonesia. But the law does not provide for children who are
sexually exploited in the streets and brothels to be treated as victims of a
crime. Instead, they are more likely to be treated as criminals. This is
because the Criminal Code contains no provisions relating to commercial
sexual transactions with a child even as it allows for punishment of children
forced into street prostitution, either for offences against public order or
as vagrants. Meanwhile, people who pay
for sex with a child and those who facilitate this action commonly escape
punishment due to the lack of explicit laws targeting people who buy sex with
children and weak enforcement of existing laws on pimping. Report On Laws And
Legal Procedures Concerning The Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children In
Indonesia ECPAT International
in collaboration with Antarini Arna,
Director, Yayasan Pemantau
Hak Anak, and Mattias Bryneson, Legal
Consultant, December 2004 www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=18309&type=Document#.UeBg3azt5qE [accessed 12 July
2013] childhub.org/en/system/tdf/library/attachments/ecpat_2004_indonesia_3.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=17250 [accessed 10
February 2019] This study finds
that in Indonesia, general awareness and understanding of the grave nature of
sexual crimes against children is low. Accordingly, Indonesian laws and legal
procedures fail to protect children sufficiently from commercial sexual
exploitation and are not in compliance with international standards, such as
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other
international instruments. Indonesia's
Shameful Export indahnesia.com
blog!, Jakarta, 09 June 2004 blog.indahnesia.com/entry/200406090004/indonesia_s_shameful_export.php [accessed 13
February 2011] It is not something
any government likes to make public, but the figures say it all: Indonesia is
one of the world's largest exporters of sex workers, mainly children. The UNICEF says as many as 70,000
Indonesian children have been sold across the country's borders as sex
commodities. They are employed in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand,
Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Similarly, nearly half of the 400,000 estimated sex workers in
Indonesia are children under 18 years old. UNICEF Urges Action
On Child Trafficking ECPAT International,
Online Newsdesk, 31 March 2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] The United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) has called on Indonesia to follow Thailand, Cambodia and the
Philippines in taking strong measures to combat child trafficking for sexual
exploitation. Help Wanted: Abuses
against Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Indonesia and Malaysia Human Rights Watch
Report, Vol. 16, No 9(C), July 2004 www.hrw.org/reports/2004/indonesia0704/3.htm [accessed 13
February 2011] I. SUMMARY - The agent came to
my house and promised me a job in a house in Malaysia… He promised to send me
to Malaysia in one month, but [kept me locked in] the labor recruiter’s
office for six months…. I think one or two hundred people were
there. The gate was locked. I wanted to go back home. There
were two or four guards, they carried big sticks. They would just
yell. They would sexually harass the women. — Interview with Fatma Haryono, age thirty,
returned domestic worker, Lombok, Indonesia, January 24, 2004 I worked for five
people, the children were grown up. I cleaned the house, the kitchen,
washed the floor, ironed, vacuumed, and cleaned the car. I worked from
5:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. every day. I never had a break; I was just
stealing time to get a break. I was paid just one time, 200 ringgit
[U.S.$52.63]. I just ate bread, there was no rice [for me]. I was
hungry. I slept in the kitchen on a mat. I was not allowed
outside of the house. ─
Interview with Nyatun Wulandari,
age twenty-three, returned domestic worker, Lombok, Indonesia, January 25,
2004. In Indonesia,
prospective migrant workers secure employment in Malaysia through both
licensed and unlicensed labor agents who often extort money, falsify travel
documents, and mislead women and girls about their work arrangements.
In both Indonesian training centers and in Malaysian workplaces, women
migrant domestic workers often suffer severe restrictions on their freedom of
movement; psychological and physical abuse, including sexual abuse; and
prohibitions on practicing their religion. Pervasive labor rights
abuses in the workplace include extremely long hours of work without overtime
pay, no rest days, and incomplete and irregular payment of wages. In
some cases, deceived about the conditions and type of work, confined at the
workplace, and receiving no salary at all, women are caught in situations of
trafficking and forced labor INDONESIA:
Indonesian military, police accused of human trafficking Asia Pacific, ABC
Radio Australia, 2/08/2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] There are claims that
the Indonesian military and police have been extorting bribes from Acehnese
asylum seekers and selling them into slavery. The claims have been backed by
refugee advocates working closely with the UN refugee agency in Malaysia,
where thousands of Acehnese are facing expulsion under a government crackdown
on illegal workers. Fighting sexual
exploitation and trafficking in Indonesia UNICEF, At a Glance:
Indonesia, 15 December 2004 www.unicef.org/infobycountry/indonesia_23650.html [accessed 13 February
2011] www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/povertyfeat_indonesia.html [accessed 29 April
2020] Yani was 15 when her
boyfriend lured her away from home with false promises of a lucrative job and
a chance to continue her education. After a long journey by car to an unknown
destination, she was raped by a middle-aged Indonesian man who beat her
unconscious after she refused his advances. She was immediately sold to a
brothel where she was guarded day and night. RI to continue with
battle against people trafficking Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 13 June 2003 www.thejakartapost.com/news/2003/06/13/ri-continue-battle-against-people-trafficking.html [accessed 30 August
2012] An estimated 230,000
Indonesian women and children have been trafficked from their home villages
in Java, Sumatra, West Nusa Tenggara and Sulawesi to be employed as sex
workers and cheap labor in urban areas at home and the sex trade overseas. The government has recently brought home
more than 300 women who were employed as sex workers in Saudi Arabia and
Malaysia. Forced labour and
exploitation of Indonesian migrant workers Anti-Slavery
International, the Indonesian Migrant Workers' Union and the Asian Migrant
Centre -- Submission to the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Geneva 16 - 20 June 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] Since the early
1980s, poverty, high unemployment and lack of educational opportunities have
been driving Indonesian migrants abroad in search of work, and by the late
1990s, they were among the fastest-growing migrant population in Asia. By
mid-2001, over 70 per cent of Indonesian migrants were women, and 43 per cent
worked in the informal employment sector as domestic workers, factory workers
or construction workers. 1 Most of these workers, considered low-status or
"unskilled," must endure highly-exploitative or abusive treatment,
and many work in conditions which meet the International Labour
Organization's (ILO) definition of forced labour as set out in Convention
No.29. Slavery continues
to plague Indonesian migrant workers Allan Chernoff, Jakarta Post, December 26, 2003 www.thejakartapost.com/news/2003/12/26/slavery-continues-plague-indonesian-migrant-workers.html [accessed 12 July
2013] How tragic and
terrible has been the violence against a great number of Indonesian women
employed overseas this year! Not only were they harassed, physically abused
or even raped but were also sent home without proper payment or traded from
one employer to another. Many women workers
who had just arrived home from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia and Singapore
said how they were insulted and beaten if they made mistakes in performing
their daily tasks, how they had to work overtime without extra pay, how they
were sexually harassed or raped by their male employers or their relatives
and how they were physically attacked by their female employers after they had been forced to have sex
with their male employers. Behind "the
success story" of most migrant workers, many have to endure brutality
and undergo a form of slavery to gain 600 riyal per month in Saudi Arabia, or
300 ringgit in Malaysia. ILO Cites Child
Labour, Forced Prostitution in Indonesia Asia Child Rights
ACR Weekly Newsletter Vol.2, No.29, 16 July 2003 acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0136/175/ [accessed 13
February 2011] Children as young
as 13 are involved in the drug trade in Jakarta, according to a survey of the
five worst forms of child labour in Indonesia released today by the
International Labour Organization. Reporting on various parts of Indonesia,
the ILO cited trafficking of children for prostitution on Java and child
labour in offshore fishing in North Sumatra, gold mining in East Kalimantan
and the shoe industry in West Java. According to the survey, children in the
country enter the commercial sex market at between 15 and 17 years of age,
sometimes with the support of parents and other relatives. Although the
survey does not contain figures, an ILO report released last month reportedly
indicated that more than 10,000 children under 18 years of age are
prostitutes in five major cities in Indonesia. Children who work in the shoe
industry in West Java are often exposed to hazardous substances such as glue
and leather dust and usually "work long hours in cramped, dusty
workshops," the ILO said. Other children work long hours in dangerous
conditions in offshore fishing and in gold mines, where they are
"exposed to multiple hazards, such as cave-ins, (becoming) trapped in
underground mines, exposure to dust and chemicals," reads the survey. Women Rescued from
Sex Ring Muguntun Vanar,
“13 Indons rescued from forced prostitution,"
The Star, 1 February 2003 www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amn030215/southeast/indonesia030215.htm [accessed 13
February 2011] WOMEN RESCUED FROM
SEX RING
- Malaysian police and the staff of the Indonesian consulate have rescued 13
Indonesian women allegedly forced into the sex trade in the interior Keningau district. The rescue came a week after two of
them escaped from the hotel. The women, aged between 14 and 24, were
sent back to Indonesia through Tawau. The Keningau police are reportedly questioning the alleged
pimp and three of his assistants. Trafficking of
Women and Children in Indonesia American Center for International
Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center), Ruth Rosenberg, Editor, 2003 www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?contentid=929 [accessed 13
February 2011] genderandsecurity.org/projects-resources/research/trafficking-women-and-children-indonesia [accessed 31 January
2018] This 300-page report was published as part of a joint Solidarity
Center/ International Catholic Migration Committee countertrafficking
campaign in Indonesia, where hundreds of thousands of young girls are lured
away from their homes each year under false pretenses, sold into bondage,
physically and sexually abused, sent out into the streets as beggars, or
worse. Indonesia’s
President Wahid joins ILO Battle Against Child Labour International Labour
Organisation (ILO) News, Bangkok & Jakarta, 8 March 2000 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] Indonesia becomes
first Asian country to ratify the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention and
the first to ratify all eight core labour standards. The Stolen Children
Of Timor Lindsay Murdoch,
Sydney Morning Herald, October 25, 2000 www.orphanages.com.au/orphanages-articles/2000/10/25/the-stolen-children-of-timor/ [accessed 24 August
2014] FROM THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE Investigators
believe the children - aged between 6 and 17 - are among up to 1,000
separated from their parents at the height of violence in East Timor last
year and later from refugee camps in West Timor. Investigators fear many of
the children have been forced to work in factory sweatshops, plantations or
as prostitutes. FROM THE UPDATE, 12 YEARS LATER Lindsay Murdoch,
Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2012 [accessed 31 January
2018] ''Those who took
children acted out of mixed and varied motivations, ranging from genuine
compassion and good intentions to the less benevolent manipulation and use of
vulnerable children for economic, political and ideological ends,'' Dr Van Klinken says. While
white Australian officials removed Aboriginal children from their families
last century with the stated claim of educating them, she says, the
Indonesians removed many Timorese children because they did not have children
of their own or to work for their families. ''They also wanted
to adopt the children of the resistance as a way to punish, weaken and
humiliate the enemy,'' Dr Van Klinken
says in a new book, Making them Indonesians, published by Monash University
Publishing. Child Labour on Indonesian Fishing Platforms The Indonesian NGO,
KKSP Foundation and Anti-Slavery International -- Submission to the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection
of Human Rights, Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, 25th
Session, Geneva, 14-23 June 2000 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6
September 2011] The Indonesian NGO,
KKSP Foundation and Anti-Slavery International have long been concerned about
the use of children on hundreds of rickety fishing platforms, known locally
as jermals, in the seas off the northeast coast of
Sumatra. Apart from a supply boat that comes every two weeks, there is no
contact with the shore. Each jermal is likely to
have three or four children on it who haul in and mend the nets as well as
boil, dry and sort the fish. The children stay for a minimum of three months
and are not free to leave. In this time the children obviously cannot see
their families or go to school. Children can fall
or be carried off by large waves during storms and there are no life jackets
on the platforms. The children suffer from fatigue because of the very long
hours they work and interrupted sleep patterns. In such a state it is easy to
lose concentration and fall from the platform or let a hand slip from the
winch. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 30 January 2004 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/indonesia2004.html [accessed 13
February 2011] [51] The Committee
is concerned that the current adoption legislation discriminates between
groups of different ethnic origins, does not provide sufficient safeguards against
abusive practices, including trafficking of children, and does not take
sufficiently into account the principle of the best interest of the child. [87] The Committee
welcomes the endorsement by the State party of relevant international and
regional agreements such as the Regional Commitment and Action Plan of the [88] The Committee
is nonetheless concerned at the lack of awareness in the State party on this
phenomenon, at the insufficient legal protection for victims of trafficking,
and that few measures have been taken to prevent and protect children from
sale, trafficking and abduction. Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch [accessed 13
February 2011] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61609.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The Singkawang District of West Kalimantan
remained well known as an area from which poor, ethnic Chinese women and
teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 20 were recruited as "mail
order" brides for men, primarily in Taiwan but also in Hong Kong and
Singapore. In some cases the women were trafficked for sex work and
slave-like servitude. In many cases
traffickers recruited girls and women under false pretenses. One tactic was
to offer young women in rural areas jobs as waitresses or hotel employees in
distant regions, including island resorts. After the new recruits arrived and
incurred debts to their recruiters, they learned that they had been hired as
prostitutes. In October Jakarta police arrested 2 persons for duping at least
51 women with offers to work in Japan as "cultural performers."
Once in Japan, the women were exploited as prostitutes. At year's end the two
suspects remained in custody awaiting trial. Many victims became
vulnerable to trafficking during the process of becoming migrant workers.
Many unauthorized recruiting agents operated throughout the country and were
involved in trafficking to various degrees, and some government-licensed
recruiting agents also were implicated in trafficking. Recruiting agents
often charged exorbitant fees leading to debt bondage and recruited persons
to work illegally overseas, which increased the workers' vulnerability to
trafficking and other abuses The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/indonesia.htm [accessed 13
February 2011] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Indonesia is a source, transit and destination
country for a significant number of international and internal trafficking
victims, including children. Children
are also engaged in the production, trafficking, and/or sale of drugs. In addition, paramilitary groups and
civilian militias, such as The Free Aceh Movement, have recruited children to
serve as child soldiers. The December 26
tsunami left thousands of children in Indonesia orphaned or separated from
their families and without access to schooling, increasing their
vulnerability to trafficking and other forms of labor exploitation.
However, the impact of the disaster on children's involvement in exploitive
child labor has yet to be determined. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery -
Indonesia", http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Indonesia.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
