Eliminating human trafficking through strengthened collaboration

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JAKARTA (ANTARA) – As cases of human trafficking continue to occur in Indonesia, Mahfud MD, who serves as the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Human Rights, said that Indonesia is in a state of emergency regarding the crime of human trafficking (TPPO).

TPPO is a transnational crime that violates human dignity and human rights (HAM).

The death toll caused by TPPO cannot be underestimated, especially among Indonesian migrant workers (PMIs) from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). As many as 624 PMIs died in the province between 2017 and 2022, most of whom were victims of TPPO.

The TPPO issue has become an emergency and should be addressed immediately through preemptive, preventive and repressive measures.

In accordance with the duties and functions conferred by the Human Rights Law No. 39 of 1999, the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) also intervened and formed a special team to deal with the TPPO issue in 2023 and announced the results of the study in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara Province on June 27, 2024.

New TPPO Program

Before TPPO can be eradicated, it is increasingly important to study the forms of this crime. The patterns of human trafficking are also changing over time.

Types of TPPO crimes identified by the National Human Rights Commission include sexual exploitation, forced brides, forced labour, modern slavery and organ trafficking. A new mode of TPPO crime that is becoming increasingly prevalent is cyber fraud or online scams.

This pattern of scams began to emerge around 2021, when countries that had closed their borders due to the pandemic reopened their borders. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the countries involved include Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Laos and Thailand.

The Indonesian National Human Rights Commission has classified cyber fraud as TPPO because it meets the elements of the act, namely the element of exploitation. The working hours of cyber fraud exceed the reasonable working hours (UU) stipulated by law. In addition, there is forced labor leading to slavery in cyber fraud.

The criminals’ modus operandi is to recruit victims through advertisements on social media. It is obvious that the victims are all working legally abroad.

However, upon arriving at their work sites, the victims were subjected to human rights violations, including verbal threats, imprisonment on company premises or areas, forced to work, and even forced to commit fraud through Indonesian digital platforms by creating fake accounts and stealing other people’s identities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs recorded 3,428 cases of online fraud involving Indonesian citizens between 2020 and 2023, of which 40% were related to TPPO. Thousands of cases were recorded in eight countries, with Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines having the most. Many victims were from North Sumatra, North Sulawesi and West Kalimantan.

Traditional TPPOs should not be neglected. East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and West Kalimantan are two provinces that Komnas HAM is focusing on.

As many as 624 migrant workers from East Nusa Tenggara province died between 2017 and 2022, most of them victims of TPPO.

West Kalimantan has become a transit point for illegal labor movement, and the phenomenon of purchasing “mail-order brides” or “forced brides” from Taiwan and China has also begun to emerge.

In this phenomenon, victims are promised to marry a mature man from China and lead a safe and secure life, but in reality, after marriage, the victims are exploited as domestic servants or simply become the caregivers of their children.

A challenging endeavor

The National Human Rights Commission has conducted direct reviews to determine the situation of TPPOs in the two provinces. In NTT, the provincial government reported that poverty and cultural migration of the people of NTT were the reasons for the high number of TPPOs in the province.

Meanwhile, in the case of West Kalimantan, Komnas HAM focuses on the Sambas district. The Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (SBMI) of the Sambas chapter outlined several factors that affect Sambas residents to work abroad, such as the difficulty of finding jobs in their place of origin, the lure of high salaries abroad, and the large number of Sambas residents who have experienced land confiscation.

Most of the Samba people go to Malaysia to work because the country has less stringent employment requirements. The victims are usually school dropouts and do not have a diploma, so they choose jobs that do not require an academic background.

The National Immigration Administration also confirmed TPPO situations in destination countries such as Malaysia. This neighboring country has the highest number of PMI placements compared to Cambodia, China and Saudi Arabia.

The study found that Pakistan Muslim League raids and arrests, especially those targeting undocumented children and women, were inconsistent with human rights principles as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on Migrant Workers, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the arrest and detention of children must be in accordance with the law and be used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible period.

From these findings, we can draw the common thread of TPPO issues, which is poverty. This is also acknowledged by Mariance Kabu, a TPPO survivor from NTT, who is fighting for her rights after being brutally abused by her employer in Malaysia. Her motivation to work in Malaysia is to improve the economic level of her family.

Besides poverty, the common denominator of TPPO problems is education. Lack of education indicates that victims are easily lured by TPPO tactics. In addition, dropping out of school becomes a barrier to finding a job that requires submitting a diploma, so they choose the last option of becoming illegal workers.

Strengthen cooperation

If the common denominator of TPPO is poverty and education, then it is imperative to strengthen structured cooperation from the highest levels of authority to the grassroots level such as traditional and religious leaders.

The central government has set up a special task force to deal with this issue, and local governments have also made efforts by formulating local regulations related to TPPO.

However, there are still obstacles in the implementation of these regulations. Therefore, the handling and prevention of TPPO has not been effective as authorized by Law No. 21 of 2007 on TPPO and Law No. 18 of 2017 on Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers.

During a high-level dialogue held by the National Human Rights Commission, the agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed amendments to Law No. 21 of 2007.

Judha Nugraha, director of the Indonesian Citizen Protection Division of the Directorate General of Protocol and Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said perpetrators of TPPO will be arrested and charged under Law No. 21 of 2007. The punishment for perpetrators is at least three years.

However, in court, the perpetrators were sentenced under Law No. 18 of 2017, which has no minimum penalty. Law No. 18 of 2017 was implemented because it is easier to apply at the evidentiary stage of the case.

As a result, several criminals were sentenced to six months in prison, and after their release, they committed the same crimes again, thus, the efforts at treatment proved to be in vain.

At the same time, due to the development of TPPO models (such as cyber fraud) in the past five years, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand believes that it is necessary to study and revise Law No. 21 of 2007, especially in the criminal field.

In addition to revisions, another area that needs to change is preventing revictimization. It is important to remember that the root cause of TPPO is poverty. The lack of employment opportunities in the area forces victims to look for work elsewhere, especially abroad with the promise of high salaries.

However, victims face the same lack of job opportunities upon return, resulting in victims illegally returning to work abroad and the possibility of human trafficking re-emerging.

The Ministry of Social Affairs implements the social rehabilitation assistance program by providing job skills and business funding assistance. But this does not mean that the Ministry can operate alone.

It is therefore becoming increasingly important to strengthen cooperation between ministries, from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology; the Ministry of Manpower; the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the House of Representatives (DPR), the National Police (Polri) and the Prosecutor’s Office.

Stakeholders at the central level must also strengthen coordination with local governments and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Center (BP3MI) to find solutions to this issue. It is necessary to establish a monitoring body to ensure the implementation of the TPPO repeal.

Strengthening all-around cooperation will strengthen the government’s measures and direction to prevent TPPO cases from happening again.

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