Bitung 30th July 2024
Every 30th July, World Anti-Trafficking Day is commemorated. At the same time with Festival Hak Asasi Manusia 2024 (Human Rights Festival 2024) that is located in Bitung, North Sulawesi, we as civil society organization and all the civil society stating our side in the middle of our government lack of seriousness in attempt to remove human trafficking that increasing continuously. On 24th June 2024, Trafficking in Person Report was published by the Department State of United States stating that Indonesia remains on Tier 2. The report also stated that human trafficking is still prevalent in Indonesia especially in online scamming and fisheries industries. Even in 2022, Indonesia was in the Tier on the watchlist due to the increase of human trafficking cases in Indonesia on COVID-19 pandemic period.
National and international law that has been adopted to Indonesia is not applied well and adequately. The law enforcement officers failed to give justice access to the victim on their verdict. Hundreds of human trafficking cases that have been handled by the police until today have not been processed to the court level. The court ruling to give restitution for victims is still not implemented. Restitution for the victim is also minimum to be applied in the case enforcement. In August 2023, there was a structural overhaul in the Trafficking in person Task Force (Gugus Tugas Tindak Pidana Perdagangan Orang) with the police as the operational leader. In the process, cross ministry responsibility, coordination with regional government, and also minimum implementation on Criminal Act of People-Trafficking (or known as TPPO) National Action Plan and each regional action plan. Human trafficking is considered a seasonal issue and its effort to remove the crime is only done at random and caters to the popular interest. Even though the police become the operational leader for TPPO taskforce, this does not ensure there will be a more effective law enforcement process.
We also notice there are several causalities why the TPPO issue is still increasing and prevalent in Indonesia. First, COVID-19 pandemic contribute a lot as the trigger to get new job because massive lay off; second, decent working conditions in Indonesia that is still far from adequate; third, government failed to manage their surplus on demography bonus and productive ages that makes younger generation becomes more vulnerable; fourth, human rights to have mobility in works doesn’t supports their human rights protection agenda.
After the pandemic, there is a wide area on trafficking in persons. Before, trafficking victims are usually seen to be targeting marginal, poor, and vulnerable society, have a low education level and do not have access to higher education. But now, there is a wide demographic of trafficking in person victims. They are young people, middle class, living in urban areas, tech-savvy, and educated even have higher education. The wide demographic area of human-trafficking victims is also related with government ignorance to fulfill right to life, decent work, and government unseriousness in removing the trafficking in person agenda.
On 10th July 2024, Ex-Langkat Regent was sentenced free by Stabat District Court and declared not guilty in the human cage case at his house. In plain sight, this case can be seen as cruelty against human right to life and human trafficking. Ex – Langkat Regent case on exploiting plantation workers shows that there’s impunity (crime without punishment) to TPPO perpetrator that keeps happening and this make the victim further away from justice. This precedent should be interpreted as a huge setback on law enforcement efforts on the human trafficking issue that has been urged by the civil society. This also shown that public officials that are involved in human trafficking cases are the main beneficiaries of impunity.
There are five issues that urgently need to be followed up such as weak law enforcement and supervision on the sea. This can be seen on several fisheries worker cases that sailing to the sea without having complete document such as Sailor Book (or known as Buku Pelaut), Basic Safety Training (BST) and Working on the Sea Agreement (or known as Perjanjian Kerja Laut (PKL)) or manipulating the documents that is required to work on the migrant or domestic fishing boats, which results on the more vulnerable to be exploited and becomes human-trafficking victims. This happens on PT Klasik Jaya Samudera with fisheries worker victims that come from Bitung.
The dualism on the Business License for Recruitment and Placement of Fishing Vessel Crew increasingly becomes an obstacle to eradicate fisheries. The issuance of implementing regulation from Government Regulation Number 22 of 2022 concerning Placement and Protection of Migrant Commercial Ship Crews and Migrant Fishing Ship Crews that has not been done, the gap on the rule potentially becomes a gap in human trafficking for migrant fisheries workers because of the lack in legal protection.
There must be an effort to compensate towards the IUUF (illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing) perpetrator that includes intellectual actors that are involved, not only the direct, as has often happened in the case that has been handled before. This becomes important, because TPPO cases that are often related to IUUF are hard to be eradicated if only the direct actors were given sanctions without touching other important actors. One thing that cannot be ignored is the child labor issue that is still happening in the fisheries sector that they are also becoming TPPO victims.
To this day, the government has not shown their commitment to prevent and eradicate. Corruption and officer involvement in human trafficking increasingly becomes an obstacle that prevents the conviction, especially on domestic, palm, fisheries, and extractive industries workers. Human trafficking crime also keeps happening through sexual exploitation practice (including child sexual exploitation). The government is also limited to developing and implementing a national standard of procedure (SOP) to identify human trafficking victims in all sectors, which leads to lack of proactive identification especially on male and adolescent. The victim in the protection center is usually experiencing restrictions on the freedom to move and their right to work that makes a lot of them leaving the protection center and not participating on human trafficking.
Of that reality, we urged government commitment on the effort to eradicate human trafficking starting on TPPO taskforce performance improvements, law enforcement officer, ministry and institution on the national and regional seriousness, and ending impunity practice that has been enjoyed by human trafficking perpetrator that close with sovereignty.
Civil Society Organization
1. Migrant CARE
2. Emancipate Indonesia
3. INFID
4. Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia
5. SAKTI Sulawesi Utara
