VZCZCXRO0007
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #3324/01 3320918
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 280918Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2239
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 013324 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EAP/RSA, G/TIP, EAP/IET 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV ELAB KWMN SMIG ID
SUBJECT: INDONESIA'S INTERIM ASSESSMENT FOR TRAFFICKING IN 
PERSONS SPECIAL WATCHLIST COUNTRIES 
 
REF: A. STATE 178111- INSTRUCTIONS 
     ¶B. 06 JAKARTA 2849- 2006 INDONESIA TIP REPORT 
     ¶C. 05 JAKARTA 12001- 2005 CHILD LABOR REPORT 
 
 ¶1. (U) Embassy Jakarta provides the following interim 
assessment of targeted actions by Indonesia on trafficking in 
persons (TIP) since the June release of the 2006 TIP report, 
as requested in ref A. 
 
Anti-Trafficking Legislation 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) A comprehensive anti-trafficking bill is in the 
final stages of consideration by Parliament.  Provided that 
some important details can be ironed out, the government and 
informed NGO observors are cautiously optimistic that the 
bill will pass in early 2007.  Meanwhile, local governments 
in East Java and elsewhere have passed their own 
anti-trafficking legislation. 
 
Criminal Investigations, Prosecutions and Convictions 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) A. Police Investigations:  The Indonesian National 
Police trafficking unit in mid-October reported the following 
2006 data on investigations:  90 trafficking suspects 
involving 437 victims, compared with 82 suspects and 143 
victims for 12 months in 2005.  National Police have 
submitted 23 cases to prosecutors and are still investigating 
24, compared with 12 cases submitted in 2005. 
 
¶B.  Prosecutions:  The Attorney General,s Office (AGO) is 
currently prosecuting 24 trafficking cases (this figure does 
not include cases handled by local prosecutors for which we 
have no statistics).  We documented 30 prosecutions 
nationwide in 2005 based on monitoring of media reports; this 
figure included local prosecutions.  The AGO provided no 
statistics in 2005 but has just begun to collect some 2006 
statistics.  The AGO,s Transnational Crime Task Force in 
October 2006 provided a detailed list of 10 trafficking cases 
the task force is pursuing since it started operating in 
July, these 10 cases representing nearly half of the task 
force,s 21 cases, the remainder being terrorism cases. 
 
¶C. Convictions:  We documented 18 convictions as of November 
2006, based on the following two sources:  International 
Organization for Migration (IOM), working with local NGOs, 
assisted 82 victims to take legal action leading to 16 
convictions; secondly, an NGO in Medan, Pusaka Indonesia, 
tracked two cases that led to conviction.  These 18 
convictions resulted in an average sentence of 4 years.  This 
compares with 15 convictions we documented for the 12 months 
of 2005, with an average sentence of 27 months. (Our 2004 and 
2005 conviction data was based on a different methodology of 
following media reports and calling police).  Passage of the 
comprehensive TIP law would improve data collection since it 
would put all trafficking cases under the same legal 
prohibition. 
 
Law Enforcement Against Labor Exploitation Trafficking 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Progress this year includes cooperation by 
Indonesian embassies and consulates in recipient countries 
who work with IOM to restore travel documents and bring 
Indonesian victims home.  Malaysian authorities inform IOM 
when victims are being deported at border points so that IOM 
and local partner NGOs can meet victims at border crossings 
and escort them to recovery hospitals and rehabilitation 
centers, preventing them from being retrafficked.  GOI 
provides facilities for outpatient victim treatment, assists 
in reintegration, and pays for about a third of the cost of 
hospital treatment for IOM-assisted victims.  IOM has rescued 
1500 victims since May 2005.  Rescued victims are treated at 
police hospitals where police interview victims in order to 
pursue investigations both domestically and abroad. 
Unfortunately, an MOU between Indonesia and Malaysia on 
migrant workers protects the rights of Malaysian employers to 
the detriment of Indonesian workers.  The Ministry of 
Manpower has done little to enforce existing labor laws that 
would protect workers against internal and external 
trafficking, allowing some employment agencies to traffic 
workers through debt bondage.  However, some unlicensed 
migrant worker holding centers have been raided and victims 
rescued.  The manpower ministry also signed an MOU with Bank 
Rakyat Indonesia to provide private credit assistance 
totaling over USD 22 million for poor migrant workers so that 
they do not fall into debt bondage.  The Minister of Women's 
Empowerment held a workshop on debt bondage in September to 
 
JAKARTA 00013324  002 OF 003 
 
 
raise awareness and shed more light on the problem. 
 
 
Combating Traffick-Related Corruption 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The new Director General of Immigration Basyir 
Ahmad Barmawi, who took office in September 2006, is a former 
high ranking police officer who has a good reputation for 
integrity and reportedly wants to clean up corruption and 
fight trafficking.  He told international NGOs that he has 
been instructed by the both the Justice Minister and the 
President to clean up rampant corruption among immigration 
officials.  One result is that two senior immigration 
officials working near a trafficking transit point are being 
investigated by police for complicity in trafficking by 
issuing false passports; another immigration official 
committed suicide this year when being investigated; and a 
local government official in a trafficking transit area is 
being held by police for issuing false documents.  The 
Anti-Corruption Court in September sentenced a former 
Indonesian consul general in Penang, Malaysia, to 20 months 
in jail for charging illegal fees to process immigration 
documents.  The national chief of police is also known to be 
tough on corruption and trafficking.  This is evidenced in 
North Sumatra, where the provincial police chief was chosen 
in part to stop trafficking, achieving some early success. 
In Riau islands, the provincial police chief is reportedly 
cleaning up prostitution.  While this type of commitment has 
yet to trickle very far into the bureaucracy, President 
Yudhoyono,s anti-corruption stance is making inroads. 
Still, corruption among immigration officials, police, 
military, prosecutors, and manpower officials -- and their 
complicity in trafficking -- remains a major impediment. 
 
Addressing Internal Trafficking 
------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) There is extensive internal trafficking primarily 
from rural to urban areas for commercial sexual exploitation 
and for other forced labor, especially involuntary domestic 
servitude.  Poverty, high unemployment and lack of education 
fuel internal trafficking.  Many trafficking cases go 
unnoticed because unlicensed or crooked employment agents 
seek victims directly.  Forged identification documents 
(either fake or with false biodata) makes finding and 
rescuing trafficking victims very difficult.  There are no 
reliable figures on the number of persons, including 
children, who are trafficked internally, but there is 
continued acceptance of children being employed as domestic 
workers.  There is a lack of awareness and concern about the 
problem of forced domestic servitude and efforts to address 
this problem are in their infancy.  On the positive side, 
programs by Indonesian and international NGOs are reaching 
out to local Muslim leaders, educators and community groups 
to educate young people, their families and the community 
about trafficking.  Some programs are reaching the hidden 
population of child domestic workers.  There is a large 
grassroots NGO effort to raise awareness and articles on the 
plight of domestic servants and child labor appear regularly 
in the media. 
 
Other Significant Developments 
------------------------------ 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The GOI budget includes a new line item of nearly 
USD 4.8 million in 2006 for anti-trafficking programs. 
Training of law enforcement officials greatly increased this 
year, with USG and other international support:  70 religious 
judges (58 percent of sharia judges) in Aceh are being 
trained in adjudicating trafficking cases; the entire 
60-member Supreme Court attended a one-day seminar on 
trafficking at the request of the chief justice; 450 new 
prosecutors (of the nation,s 6,000 prosecutors) attended 
intensive anti-trafficking training last summer, with 
training curriculum now in place for future courses at the 
AGO's Training Center; 150 police and NGO representatives 
were trained in joint anti-trafficking classes in East Java; 
prosecutors from the newly formed national anti-trafficking 
task force and North Sumatra prosecutors, about 60 
prosecutors in total, were trained in anti-trafficking; 60 
prosecutors and investigators who will work with 
international law enforcement targeting foreign pedophiles 
who exploit Indonesian children received specialized training 
from DOJ and the French Ministry of Interior; and the AGO's 
Transnational Crime Task Force has started a series of 
training programs for local prosecutors on TIP and other 
issues. 
 
 
JAKARTA 00013324  003 OF 003 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) A detailed manual on how trafficking can be 
prosecuted under existing law is now used as part of all 
police training, with 20,000 copies distributed nationwide. 
A 12-person trafficking police unit has been formed at the 
national level and DOJ is working with the INP to expand this 
unit to hundreds of officers; in addition, 40-50 police 
trained in trafficking were recently assigned to train police 
nationwide.  An integrated effort to rescue, treat and 
reintegrate victims into the community is being carried out 
nationally and at the local levels.  Local task forces are 
focusing local government resources and building links with 
NGOs to fight trafficking.  For example, in both North 
Sumatra and East Java, two important hubs for international 
and domestic trafficking, a large alliance of government and 
NGO leaders is successfully organizing programs to help 
victims reintegrate into society and avoid being 
retrafficked, and at the same time conducting extensive 
outreach programs into the poor, rural communities where many 
victims originate. 
PASCOE