Over 1,800 Indonesian Migrant Workers Fallen Victims to Human Trafficking since 2019, SBMI Reports

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (SBMI) and the Indonesian feminist organization Women’s Solidarity for Human Rights (Solidaritas Perempuan) noted that from 2019 to 2024, more than 1,800 Indonesian migrant workers were strongly indicated as victims of human trafficking. Solidaritas Perempuan even mentioned an 87 percent rise in non-procedural migration for informal workers.

In its research, SBMI revealed a gap between the Palermo Protocol and Indonesia’s Human Trafficking Law Number 21 of 2007 in terms of proving exploitation. This gap shows the necessity of harmonizing domestic law with international instruments to improve the effectiveness of handling the human trafficking issue in Indonesia.

"The state must ramp up commitment to tackle the crimes of human trafficking," said SBMI General Chairperson Hariyanto Suwarno in a written statement, quoted Thursday, August 1, 2024.

Hariyanto said the government must boost supervision, action, and recovery to minimize human trafficking cases. As human trafficking is an organized crime, Hariyanto urged the government to not only target the executors on the ground but also the mastermind. 

Based on data from the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Board (BP2MI), 88.4 percent of human trafficking victims are women, with 91 percent of them adults, 95 percent experiencing forced labor exploitation and 5 percent experiencing sexual exploitation. 

In 2023, the agency logged 344 cases of human trafficking, with 76 percent of the victims men and 24 percent women.

This year, Indonesia did move up to tier 2 in the US State Department's human trafficking report after previously being on the tier 2 watchlist. This reflects improvements in the protection, prevention, and prosecution of human trafficking cases.

Even so, Indonesia still has to improve its efforts to investigate and prosecute human trafficking crimes.

To address the issue of human trafficking in Indonesia, SBMI and Solidaritas Perempuan conveyed seven main demands to the government:

1. The government must optimally implement Law Number 18 of 2017 concerning the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, along with its derivatives;
2. The government must ensure that the human trafficking task force can prevent and justly handle human trafficking cases, uphold human rights, and have a real impact on Indonesian migrant workers;
3. The government must immediately improve the governance of handling migrant workers who are victims of human trafficking, down to the regional government level;
4. The government must ensure that every Indonesian migrant worker receives protection from all forms of human trafficking in the country of placement;
5. The government ensures and guarantees the fulfillment of the right to restitution and reintegration for victims of human trafficking;
6. The government must immediately issue a decree revoking the regulation of the Minister of Manpower Decree Number 260 of 2015 which discriminates against women who are migrant workers in the informal sector; and
7. The government must immediately carry out policy coherence and cross-ministerial coordination to ensure mutually supportive protection policies for Indonesian migrant workers and eliminate the structural causes of forced migration that lead to human trafficking.

HAN REVANDA PUTRA

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