INDONESIA: Drive vs Trafficking Means Fighting Poverty, Corruption

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Richel Dursin

JAKARTA, Jul 4 2003 (IPS) - Thirteen-year-old Yati was robbed of her childhood when she was sold into bonded labour and now, she sells both tea and her body.

Thirteen-year-old Yati was robbed of her childhood when she was sold into bonded labour and now, she sells both tea and her body.

Yati (not her real name) was sold by her parents, in Indramayu, West Java, for one million rupiah (125 U.S. dollars) to a couple in Jakarta. The couple forced her to work in their teashop and prostitute herself to customers.

"I don’t know what kind of parents I have," said Yati, her head downcast and sitting uneasily at the table.

For two years Yati, the eldest of three children, has been working regularly from 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. on the dark streets of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

She managed to flee five times and went home to her province. But every time she escaped, her parents, who are farmers, brought her back to her keepers.

Every month, Yati’s parents receive at least 60,000 rupiah (7.50 dollars) from the couple, who were originally from the village of Indramayu. Yati herself receives a monthly allowance of 100,000 rupiah (12.50 dollars) from the couple.

Sometimes, her male customers give her a tip. But most of the time, she is left alone in a hotel and forced to go back to her captors’ house on foot.

”I’m tired and scared of being beaten up. I don’t know when I’ll stop selling tea and my body,” said Yati, who gets counselling on HIV/AIDS prevention and free condoms from Bandungwangi, a non-governmental organisation run by survivors of trafficking, child abuse, rape and violence.

Yati’s story echoes those of many others. The government estimates that there are around one million Indonesian women and children who have been trafficked.

In its third annual Trafficking in Persons Report released in June, the U.S. State Department moved Indonesia from Tier 3, the lowest level, in 2002 to Tier 2 in 2003.

According to the U.S. State Department report, the Indonesian government has not yet fully complied with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, but is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with those standards.

”Indonesia is now considered as a second-tier nation, which means we have the awareness but are not yet implementing the laws,” said State Minister for Women’s Empowerment Sri Redjeki Sumaryoto. Sumaryoto, however, stressed that the government is committed to eliminating human trafficking.

But Bandungwangi pointed out that Indonesia’s criminal justice system is not very effective in prosecuting human traffickers. Under existing laws, the maximum punishment for traffickers is only seven years’ jail.

”Most of the time, our law enforcers are the problem. They deter the fight against human trafficking because they benefit from it through corruption and pay-offs,” said Bandungwangi’s director, Anna Sulikah.

In one instance, Sulikah said her NGO helped one girl in Batam, Riau province report to the police that she was a victim of trafficking but after a couple of days, the police returned her to the traffickers.

"NGOs helping victims of trafficking also reported numerous cases in which police require money from parents or families of victims in order to investigate their allegations," she added.

At present, Bandungwangi is handling 49 human trafficking cases, all of them from Yati’s village of Indramayu.

”In Indramayu, where majority of the people are poor, daughters are considered as ‘assets’ because their families sell them to traffickers,” said Sulikah.

But the predicament of Indonesian women also extends overseas.

Out of desperation to find work and send home foreign exchange, many are willing to marry foreigners they know little about in order to get residence visas. The outcome, however, is all too predictable.

An increasing number of Indonesian women are ending up in overseas brothels – sold into sexual slavery by the men they set out to marry. In Sukabumi village, West Java, many girls, in desperate need of work, have migrated to Taiwan as wives of retired police officers or disabled men.

”In many instances, the husbands forced their new brides to work as sex slaves,” said Carla June Natan, coordinator of the non-governmental Centre for Indonesian Migrant Workers.

Last January, CIMW conducted a survey in Sukabumi and found out that in one of the hotels there, a broker arranges marriages between village women and Taiwanese for them to get residence visas in Taiwan. But many of the women end up working in the sex industry.

Apart from Java, according to CIMW, most trafficking victims were also from the poor communities of West Nusa Tenggara, Sumatra and Sulawesi provinces.

Similar reports have involved women from other South-east Asian countries.

One contributory factor to women in villages falling prey to human traffickers is their low level of literacy.

According to the International Catholic Migration Commission in Indonesia (ICMC), in Indramayu, where most trafficking victims were from, the female literacy rate is only 55.5 percent, compared to the country’s national literacy rate of 80.5 percent for women and 90.9 percent for men.

”A lot of people in Indonesia are dreaming of a better life and those without proper education are easy prey for the traffickers,” said Anis Hamim, counter-trafficking project programme officer of ICMC.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian government, trying to deflect international criticism, is discussing a national plan of action to combat the trafficking of women and children.

This plan is now with the House of Representatives, and activists hope it can be signed into law before the end of the year.

The bill provides tougher penalties for traffickers. Under the new legislation, traffickers can be imprisoned between three and 15 years and fined heavily. The fines, in turn, will be used to compensate the victims.

But ICMC’s Hamim remains unconvinced. ”The big perpetrators in the trafficking of Indonesian women and children are often not prosecuted," she said.