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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 25 JAKARTA 000415 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, PRM, EAP/RSP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREF ELAB EAID ID
SUBJECT: INDONESIA ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 
 
REF: A. STATE 161287 
     ¶B. 07 JAKARTA 3359 
     ¶C. 07 JAKARTA 590 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  001.2 OF 025 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  Indonesia took a major step forward in 
fighting trafficking in persons (TIP) in April 2007 with the 
signing into law by President Yudhoyono of a tough, 
comprehensive Law on the Eradication of the Criminal Act of 
Trafficking in Persons.  Police and prosecutors began using 
the new law widely during the past six months.  Law 
enforcement against traffickers increased dramatically in 
2007 for the second year in a row, with arrests up 77 
percent, from 142 to 252, prosecutions up 94 percent, from 56 
to 109, and convictions up 27 percent, from 36 to 46.  A 
number of trafficking syndicates were shut down. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Police have cooperated closely with RSO Jakarta in 
investigating trafficking syndicates to the United States. 
Law enforcement action to rescue children from prostitution 
and other trafficking was vigorous.  Police carried out 
significant action to shut down manpower placement companies 
which were complicit in trafficking, including the arrest and 
prosecution of two owners. Important progress was made in 
fighting trafficking-related corruption, including the arrest 
and prosecution of several immigration officials.  NGOs 
reported that because of enforcement of the new 
anti-trafficking law had a severe chilling effect on the 
practice by local officials of issuing false documentation 
for trafficking purposes and that they are much more hesitant 
to do so now, thus greatly inhibiting the ability of 
traffickers to obtain false documents. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The President and other senior officials gave 
prominent public attention to trafficking by meeting with 
victims abroad.  The media and public information campaigns 
continued to widely publicize trafficking issues, and a 
survey of Indonesians revealed that two-thirds of the 
population express concern that Indonesians who work abroad 
are likely to suffer physical and psychological abuse by 
employers.  Local laws and actions by local government-civil 
society anti-trafficking task forces were vigorous in 2007, 
inspired by wide dissemination of the new anti-trafficking 
law.  Provincial and local governments significantly 
increased efforts and resources to fight trafficking 
nationwide.  Overseas, Indonesian embassies and consulates 
were very proactive in rescuing and assisting victims. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) However, some serious roadblocks to fighting 
trafficking remained in place.  The GOI showed little 
political will to renegotiate an MOU with Malaysia which 
ceded basic workers' rights to hold their travel documents. 
Exploitation of workers by manpower placement companies 
continued to be widespread despite police action, due to GOI 
inaction.  The decentralized approach to rescuing, treating 
and reintegrating victims has hindered implementation of the 
law due to lack of central direction and funding to assist 
victims, while the national budget for trafficking remained 
far below needs.  There was no progress in stopping officials 
from abetting trafficking in prostitution.  No action was 
taken to protect women and children entrapped in debt bondage 
as domestic servants within Indonesia. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Indonesia needs to take the following actions to 
make further headway in curbing trafficking: 
--Greatly accelerate efforts to combat the corruption that 
feeds trafficking, particularly among law enforcement 
officials, including the military, police, ministry of 
manpower and immigration officials. 
--Increase GOI funding for law enforcement against 
traffickers and for rescue, recovery and reintegration of 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  002.2 OF 025 
 
 
victims. 
--Create a migrant manpower recruitment and placement system 
that protects and benefits the workers rather than exploits 
them to the benefit of the manpower companies and employers. 
--Pursue better cooperation with receiving countries in 
combating trafficking. 
--Better protect domestic workers within Indonesia, 
particularly children, through enforcement of existing laws. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
SOURCES 
------- 
 
¶6.  (U) The U.S. Mission in Indonesia received information 
from the following sources: Indonesian National Police (INP) 
which provided a report in February 2008, "Law Enforcement 
Against Trafficking in Persons" as well as detailed data on 
investigations and arrests; the Attorney General's Office 
(AGO); the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry (the Manpower 
Ministry); the Department of Foreign Affairs Office of 
Overseas Manpower Protection; and a number of local 
government offices.  International and domestic NGOs also 
provided information, in particular the American Center for 
International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) and International 
Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as the 
International Labor Organization (ILO). 
 
¶7.  (U) The report text follows the general outline of themes 
and questions provided in ref A instructions. 
 
¶8.  (U) The Jakarta Mission point of contact on the TIP issue 
is Political Officer Stanley Harsha, tel. (62) 21-3435-9146, 
fax (62) 21-3435-9116. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Report text: 
 
¶I.  OVERVIEW OF INDONESIA'S ACTIVITIES TO 
    ELIMINATE TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 
----------------------------------------- 
 
The past year did not witness significant change in overall 
trafficking patterns in Indonesia.  There is a continuous 
trend of Indonesians seeking work abroad as high unemployment 
and poverty pushes workers overseas.  Cases of severe abuse 
of Indonesians trafficked abroad continued unabated. 
 
INDONESIA FACES SIGNIFICANT TRAFFICKING CRIMES 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
Indonesia, a developing country and emerging democracy with 
the world's fourth largest population, is a place of origin 
for a significant number of internationally trafficked women 
and children, and to a lesser extent men.  Indonesia is also 
a transit and destination country for international 
trafficking, although foreign victims are very small in 
number relative to Indonesian victims.  Very significant 
incidents of trafficking occur within Indonesia's borders, 
including for prostitution.  Different regions of the country 
are identifiable as sending, transiting and/or receiving 
areas for internal as well as international trafficking. 
There were no reports during this period of trafficking in 
territory outside of GOI control. 
 
SOURCE REGIONS 
-------------- 
 
Various official data and observations by ACILS/ICMC 
(November 2006, When They Were Sold) indicate that all 
provinces of Indonesia are both sources and destinations (ref 
B).  Indonesian National Police (INP) reported primary origin 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  003.2 OF 025 
 
 
areas as Java, West Kalimantan, Lampung, North Sumatra and 
West Nusa Tenggara.  This data matched 2007 statistics from 
IOM which, based on the 1,154 victims it assisted that year, 
reported the following points of origin:  West Kalimantan, 23 
percent; West Java, 21 percent; East Java, 14 percent; 
Central Java 11 percent; West Nusa Tenggara seven percent; 
Lampung, six percent; East Nusa Tenggara (5 percent), South 
Sumatra, three percent, Jakarta, one percent; with other 
sources areas all composing under one percent of the totals. 
 
TRANSIT AREAS 
------------- 
 
INP reported primary transit areas as Jakarta, Surabaya, 
Bali, Batam, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.  Domestic routes 
varied. 
 
DESTINATIONS 
------------ 
INP reported primary domestic destinations as:  Java, Bali, 
North Sumatra, East Kalimantan and Papua.  A disturbing trend 
in recent years has been an increase in trafficking of young 
girls, many under age 18, from North Sulawesi, West 
Kalimantan, and Papua, where they are exploited in 
prostitution in areas with rich extractive industries, 
according to NGOs. A Manado-based NGO reported that more than 
80 girls were trafficked from North Sulawesi between January 
and September 2007, an average of two girls per week. 
Internationally, INP reported the following destinations: 
Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, 
Saudi Arabia, UEA, Qatar, Syria, Kuwait, France, Belgium, 
Germany and Holland.  In the latter half of 2007, an RSO 
investigation working with Jakarta police uncovered 
trafficking operations to the U.S. 
 
According to 2007 IOM statistics for the victims it assisted, 
the primary destinations were as follows: 
 
-------------------------------------- 
Destination       Freq  Percent 
-------------------------------------- 
Malaysia          936   81 
Indonesia         186   16 
Japan               9  .79 
Saudi Arabia        7  .61 
Others:  Iraq, Singapore, Taiwan, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. 
 
TYPES OF WORKERS EXPLOITED 
-------------------------- 
 
IOM 2007 data revealed that of the victims it assisted, 57 
percent were domestic workers, 11 percent prostitutes, 11 
percent exploited during transit, 7 percent plantation 
workers, 3 percent waitresses and the rest construction 
workers, shopkeepers, nannies, fishermen, masseuses, and 
cultural dancers.  ICMC and ACILS, in their 2003 book 
entitled "Trafficking of Women and Children in Indonesia," 
identified three categories that generate the greatest number 
of TIP victims:  female migrant workers, prostitutes and 
child domestic workers.  Men and boys, women and girls, are 
all widely trafficked, but 2007 IOM data of the victims it 
assisted revealed 87 percent female and 13 percent male; 77 
percent adult and 23 percent children. 
 
CHILDREN 
-------- 
 
As outlined in the Mission's 2007 Worst Form of Child Labor 
Report (ref A), children are trafficked for a w(e variety of 
purposes, but primarily into domestic servitude, 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  004.2 OF 025 
 
 
prostitution, rural agriculture and cottage industries. 
Many girls under age 18, and even under age 15, work long 
hours at low wages as domestic servants, according to 
reliable NGO studies underway in 2007.  They are often times 
under perpetual debt bondage due to pay advances given to the 
children's families by brokers.  The problem is hidden 
because children work under lock and key.   So-called 
"foundations" are commonly used as fronts for trafficking 
children as domestic servants.  In 2007, one NGO identified 
285 child domestic workers in Bandung and 305 in Surabaya 
under age 17 -- mostly under age 15. 
 
The Child Protection Commission in December 2007 uncovered 
children employed in the birds' nest processing industry in 
West Jakarta, involving what they suspect could be large 
numbers of children aged 15 and under.  The commission 
rescued six children from one of the homes where this 
activity took place and are attempting to rescue other 
children. 
 
Internationally, from November 2006 to October 2007, one NGO 
rescued 313 boys and girls aged 7 to 17, including 107 aged 
15 and under.  They had been trafficked to Jordan, Kuwait, 
Malaysia, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Indonesia. 
 
RELIABLE STATISTICS UNAVAILABLE 
------------------------------- 
 
Reliable statistics or estimates of the overall number of 
victims--including number of prostitutes and child 
victims--remain unavailable and unreliable. 
 
TRAFFICKING CONDITIONS, METHODS 
------------------------------- 
 
For internal trafficking into the sex trade, traffickers used 
debt bondage, violence and threats of violence, drug 
addiction, and withholding of documents to keep women and 
children in prostitution.  Traffickers employ a variety of 
means to attract and hold victims, including promises of 
well-paying jobs, debt bondage, community or family 
pressures, threats of violence, rape, and false marriages. 
Promises of relatively lucrative employment are among the 
most common tactics.  For example, police and NGO interviews 
of women who escaped from forced prostitution in Batam, Papua 
and Malaysia commonly reveal that traffickers recruited the 
young women with offers of jobs in restaurants, supermarkets 
or as domestic servants. Once at their destination, 
traffickers used violence and rape to force them into the sex 
trade.  Migrant worker recruiters also use misrepresentation 
and debt bondage to traffic men and women. 
 
Debt bondage is particularly common in the sex trade. 
Indonesian women and girls trafficked into prostitution in 
Batam, for example, commonly began with a debt of 
USD600-1,200.  Given the constant accumulation of other 
debts, women and girls are often unable to repay these 
amounts, even after years of work as prostitutes. 
 
Some migrant workers, often female, also entered trafficking 
and trafficking-like situations during their attempt to find 
work abroad through migrant worker recruiting companies 
(PJTKI).  Licensed and unlicensed companies used debt 
bondage, withholding of documents and confinement in locked 
premises to keep migrant workers in holding centers, 
sometimes for periods of many months.  Some also uses threats 
of violence to maintain control over prospective migrant 
workers.  Civil society, officials, and victims themselves 
commonly viewed conditions of debt bondage and physical 
confinement as acceptable aspects of the migrant worker 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  005.2 OF 025 
 
 
system, rather than as rights violations. 
 
Traffickers took advantage of persons in many impoverished 
regions. While poverty plays a leading role in facilitating 
trafficking, poor educational opportunities, cultural factors 
and established trafficking networks also acted as important 
determinants. 
 
Police and NGOs found in 2007 that Indonesians sometimes 
arrive legally in one country, for example Malaysia, and then 
are provided with false documentation and lured to more 
remote locations, such as the Middle East and Europe, where 
they are trafficked. 
 
TRAFFICKERS 
----------- 
 
Traffickers fit many different profiles.  Some worked in 
larger mafia-like organizations, particularly for trafficking 
into major prostitution areas.  Others operated as small or 
family-run businesses.  Husband-wife teams of traffickers 
were common, with the wife often serving as the recruiting 
agent. In many instances, local community leaders and parents 
of victims assisted in trafficking. 
 
Some manpower brokers operated similar to trafficking rings, 
leading both male and female workers into debt bondage, 
abusive employment situations and other trafficking 
situations.  Some of the offending manpower companies held 
official licenses.  Others operated illegally or appeared to 
be fronts for traffickers. 
 
U.S. TRAFFICKING SYNDICATES UNCOVERED BY RSO 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
RSO Jakarta uncovered new trafficking syndicates in 2007 
using these techniques to traffic workers to the U.S.  These 
syndicates provided victims with false documents to procure 
visas to the U.S., after which they were turned over to 
agents in the U.S. who used debt bondage to enslave the 
victims. Since October 2007, RSO has coordinated with the INP 
to target criminal syndicates that specialize in the 
production and sale of counterfeit documents to facilitate 
human smuggling and/or trafficking to the United States.  RSO 
provided information to the INP that has resulted in over 
thirty arrests and eight search warrants against vendor 
operations in the Jakarta metropolitan area.  The information 
obtained from these search warrants led to the discovery of a 
Pennsylvania based Indonesian human smuggling/trafficking 
syndicate.  RSO is coordinating with Diplomatic Security 
Service's (DSS) Visa Fraud Branch, the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation and the Department of State's Human Smuggling 
and Trafficking Center to in 
vestigate this syndicate.  Additional leads related to this 
criminal organization are being pursued both in the United 
States and Indonesia. 
 
In coordination with the Jakarta Consular Section's Fraud 
Prevention Unit, RSO has identified twenty-five other 
criminal organizations within the Jakarta metropolitan area 
that are involved in the production and distribution of 
counterfeit documents and/or the smuggling/trafficking of 
persons from Indonesia to the United States and other 
countries.  DSS has authorized RSO JAKARTA to coordinate with 
the INP to fund and conduct undercover operations against 
these criminal elements. 
 
DSS has provided RSO Jakarta with funds to provide human 
smuggling/trafficking training to the INP.  RSO, in 
conjunction with Department of Justice's International 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  006.2 OF 025 
 
 
Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), 
will provide a minimum of five human smuggling and 
trafficking training courses to the INP in calendar year 
¶2008.  In response, INP Jakarta has set up a local 
anti-trafficking unit. 
 
OFFICIAL COMPLICITY 
------------------- 
 
NGOs reported that because of enforcement of the new 
anti-trafficking law, had a severe chilling effect on the 
practice by local officials of issuing false documentation 
for trafficking purposes and that they are much more hesitant 
to do so now, thus greatly inhibiting the ability of 
trafficker to obtain false documents. Some individual members 
of the security forces were complicit in trafficking, 
particularly by providing protection to brothels and 
prostitution fronts in discos, karaoke bars and hotels, or by 
receiving bribes to turn a blind eye to such crimes.  In 
Sorong, Papua, newly arrived trafficked girls from North 
Sulawesi are taken to the local police by sex pub owners. 
Police are told that the girls have a large debt and are 
under contract.  Police agreed to arrest the girls and return 
them to the pubs if they escape, according to officials and 
NGOs in North Sulawesi.  An unknown number of civilian 
officials, including those who work in local government 
service, immigration, and local Manpower offi 
ces, either contributed to or were complicit in trafficking. 
 
INP reported that traffickers in 2007 were increasingly 
recruiting young women to work in Malaysia as "interns" in 
hotels, since the law allows girls under the age of 21 to 
work as interns.  Upon arrival in Malaysia, these girls are 
forced to work with low pay and are subsequently trafficked 
into slave labor. 
 
There were many reports of families either selling or 
encouraging children to enter abusive domestic service or 
prostitution.  Children worked to pay off debts or advances 
provided to their families. 
 
DATA ON PROSTITUTION 
-------------------- 
 
Prostitution constitutes a major source of concern for TIP in 
Indonesia due to the number of women and children involved; 
the clandestine, abusive and often forced nature of this 
work; the prevalence of organized crime; and the frequent 
awareness and/or complicity of officials and security forces 
(police and military) in prostitution.  There is no reliable 
data on the number of girls and women forced into 
prostitution through debt bondage but the numbers are 
significant. 
 
GOI officials and NGOs often criticized police officers as 
too passive in combating trafficking absent specific 
complaints.  Although police were often aware of underage 
prostitutes or other trafficking situations, they frequently 
did not intervene to protect victims or arrest probable 
traffickers without specific reports from third parties. 
Police in some areas facilitated and accepted at face value 
efforts by pimps to obtain written statements by prostitutes, 
which "verified" that the prostitutes were of adult age and 
had consented to their roles.  Police in some areas generally 
accepted trafficking or trafficking-like situations, whether 
out of lack of awareness of trafficking as a crime, their 
direct or indirect involvement in trafficking, their 
individual financial interest in prostitution, lack of police 
resources for operations, or competing law enforcement 
priorities.  Police often times claim that they cannot 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  007.2 OF 025 
 
 
identify underage prostitutes because they have fake IDs and 
cannot prove their age. 
 
INDONESIAN VICTIMS IN MALAYSIA 
------------------------------ 
 
Malaysia is commonly identified as the country receiving the 
greatest number of Indonesian trafficking victims.  According 
to ACILS, in Malaysia the risks of being trafficked are 
compounded by the fact that probably more women and girls 
enter Malaysia illegally than legally to seek employment. 
ACILS reports that an over-supply of Indonesian women and 
girls in Malaysia results in placement agencies in Malaysia 
offering incentives to more families to hire foreign maids, 
including offering the employer recovery of fees from the 
employee through wage reductions.  Various sources report 
that the first five months of wages are commonly deducted. 
IOM reported that from March 2005 to October 2006, 72 percent 
of female victims recovered from various countries had 
chlamydia, and a significant proportion had other STDs, 
including 1.7 percent who were HIV positive.  Of these 
victims, 63 percent came from Malaysia. 
 
A 2006 bilateral MOU between Indonesia and Malaysia failed to 
give adequate protection to Indonesian migrant workers, 
opening the door to abuse.  The agreement allows employers to 
hold workers' passports restricting their freedom to return 
home, allows monthly deductions of up to 50 percent of 
negotiated wages to repay loans and advances, and does not 
specify time off.  Indonesian and Malaysian authorities met 
in June 2007 to discuss renegotiating the MOU but no progress 
was made.  The GOI has demonstrated little political will to 
address this issue. 
 
"CULTURAL PERFORMERS" IN JAPAN 
------------------------------ 
 
GOI stopped permitting Indonesian women to travel to Japan 
and South Korea as "cultural performers" in June 2006, thus 
curtailing a practice that led to victims being trafficked 
under this guise.  However, in 2007, traffickers increasingly 
used false documents, including passports, to obtain tourist 
visas for young girls who are forced into prostitution in 
Japan to repay a debt USD20,000.  The false documentation 
makes it all the more difficult for them to escape from 
sexual slavery. 
 
 
Taiwan 
------ 
 
Trafficking of young girls to Taiwan - mainly from West 
Kalimantan - persisted in 2007.  Traffickers use false 
marriage licenses and phony marriage photos for the girls to 
obtain visas, Migrant Care reported.  They are forced into 
prostitution in Taiwan. 
 
Middle East 
----------- 
 
Migrant Care reports that large-scale trafficking to the 
Middle East persists, Saudi Arabia being the worst offender. 
The UAE, Jordan and Iraq are also destination countries, 
though others exist.  Many Muslim girls are lured to Saudi 
Arabia with promises of a good salary and the opportunity to 
make a pilgrimage to Mecca, a dream far beyond their 
financial means.  Many Indonesians are trafficked from 
Malaysia.   One large syndicate trafficked 27 girls to 
Kurdistan, Iraq in 2007.  Some of these girls were brought 
legally to Jordan first and then told they were not qualified 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  008.2 OF 025 
 
 
to work in Jordan and promised good jobs in Kurdistan, 
Migrant Care reported.  One girl who Labatt spoke with by 
telephone in Kurdistan in October 2007 said a Turkish 
businessman kept her and other Indonesian girls trapped in 
domestic servitude with low wages.  She and four others 
escaped by contacting IOM, which facilitated their travel 
from Iraq. 
 
MIGRANT WORKERS 
--------------- 
 
Illegal migrant workers are more likely to be trafficked, and 
according to ACILS at least 800,000 of the current estimated 
1.5 million Indonesian workers in Malaysia are said to be 
illegal.  Some 600,000 documented Indonesian workers went 
abroad in 2006, and another two million traveled 
undocumented, according to GOI sources. In order to relieve 
unemployment in Indonesia, the official target is to send 
750,000 workers abroad next year, according to the Ministry 
of Manpower.  The policy is to send 70 percent semi-skilled 
workers, reducing the number sent in low wage informal sector 
jobs. 
 
FOREIGN VICTIMS IN INDONESIA 
---------------------------- 
 
According to an American researcher who conducted a study in 
2007 on trafficking of women in Southeast Asia, the vast 
majority of foreign prostitutes in Indonesia are from 
Mainland China.  Smugglers told this researcher that they 
estimate the number to be between 4,000 and 20,000.  Of the 
100 Chinese prostitutes he interviewed, none had been forced, 
although all had debts of between USD1,000 and USD4,000 to 
repay.  They were under pressure to repay the debts and then 
earn money to send home, the women told the researcher.  The 
pimps/smugglers kept their passports and said it was easy to 
extend the visas with bribes. The researcher also came across 
a few women from Thailand and eastern Europe. 
 
POLITICAL WILL 
-------------- 
 
Political will to fight trafficking was clear at the national 
leadership level as well as at local levels in 2007, while 
awareness of the issue continued to penetrate through 
government agencies.  During a January 2008 visit to 
Malaysia, President Yudhoyono met with trafficking victims, 
including Nirmala Bonat, whose relentless fight in the 
Malaysian court system to bring justice to the employers who 
abused her in 2004 has become the cause clbre for 
Indonesian trafficking victims.  Following his visit to five 
Middle East countries in May 2007 where he met with 
trafficking victims, the President convened a cabinet meeting 
at which he called for action to ensure better treatment and 
protection of Indonesian migrant workers. 
 
A Malaysian law enforcement delegation visited Indonesia in 
December 2007 to discuss better cooperation to protect 
Indonesian migrant workers and the INP reports good 
cooperation with its Malaysian counterparts in investigating 
cases. 
 
Furthermore, the President has appointed senior level 
officials in key positions with clear instructions to 
eliminate trafficking, resulting in noticeable progress in 
law enforcement. The government has trained over a thousand 
law enforcement officials on fighting trafficking, often 
times in interagency courses also attended by NGOs. The 
number of special anti-trafficking police and prosecutors 
greatly increased. 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  009.2 OF 025 
 
 
 
As President Yudhoyono's clear stance on clean government 
filtered down this year through the ranks, corrupt officials 
complicit in trafficking have been fired, prosecuted or 
transferred.  In 2007, several senior law enforcement 
officials complicit in illegal activities that promoted 
trafficking were being investigated for corruption, 
sanctioned, or transferred to less sensitive positions, 
according to reliable official sources. 
 
With the passage of the new anti-trafficking law, local task 
forces in many provinces across Indonesia have reinvigorated 
their efforts.  For example, the North Sulawesi 
anti-trafficking task force meets regularly with 
representatives from the full spectrum of official agencies 
and NGOs.  In 2007 this effort resulted in dramatic progress 
to prevent trafficking, to raise public awareness and to 
rescue trafficking victims.  For example, most of the North 
Sulawesi anti-trafficking police, based on information 
provided by NGOs, traveled to Sorong, Papua, to rescue and 
return several trafficked girls to North Sulawesi.  North 
Sulawesi officials report that in 2004, 70 percent of the 
girls trafficked to Papua were from North Sulawesi, but that 
their prevention efforts resulted in that percentage dropping 
to 30 percent by 2007. 
 
LIMITATIONS, RESOURCES 
---------------------- 
 
During 2007, Indonesia showed significant progress in its 
counter-trafficking efforts through the passage of a strong 
anti-trafficking law and widespread efforts to disseminate 
information concerning this law. But the year was also marked 
with serious shortfalls that could be attributed to continued 
lack of capacity but potentially also due to diminished 
political will to continue tackling the complex problems 
associated with trafficking.  Due to the fact that a new 
national task force had not yet been formed through a mandate 
from one of these implementing regulations, little emphasis 
has been placed on developing a second National Plan of 
Action (NPA) to combat trafficking in persons, despite the 
fact that Indonesia's first NPA expired at the end of 
December. Work on finishing national guidelines for services 
to trafficked persons - through another revision of the 
Standard Operating Procedures for Return, Recovery and 
Reintegration of Trafficking Victims (SOPs) and a new 
regulation on standard minimum servi 
ces (SPM) - met with little progress following passage of the 
anti-trafficking law. Finally, an annual report on 
trafficking in persons by the Government of Indonesia has yet 
to be issued for 2006 (publication has traditionally taken 
place in March of each year) and it appears that a report for 
2007 has not yet been worked on in any significant way. 
 
The Ministry of Women's Empowerment, charged with 
coordinating efforts to implement the law, was not yet able 
to provide data on the amount spent on trafficking in 2007, 
but is gathering this information.  Post will report this 
septel. 
 
Given the scope of the country's trafficking problem, 
Indonesia's actions against trafficking, whether the 
responsibility of national or local governments, continued to 
demonstrate serious weaknesses and failings.  Indonesia's 
relative poverty, weaknesses in governance, poor public 
funding, preoccupation with post-tsunami recovery, and 
endemic corruption all contributed to these shortcomings. 
 
 
ANTI-CORRUPTION EFFORTS 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  010.2 OF 025 
 
 
----------------------- 
 
President Yudhoyono's strong anti-corruption stance resulted 
in action against officials complicit in trafficking in 2007. 
  The national police chief, the attorney general and the new 
director general of immigration all gave signals to officials 
that corruption would not be tolerated, taking their lead 
directly from the President.  As a result, GOI and NGO 
sources confirmed that several senior officials suspected of 
corruption that contributed to trafficking are either being 
investigated for corruption, sanctioned, or transferred to 
less sensitive positions.  In addition, the following 
specific actions can be reported: 
 
National police reported arresting and prosecuting at least 
three immigration officials at key transit points: the 
Jakarta international airport and at the Entekong border post 
with Malaysia; other investigations are underway which they 
could not discuss. 
 
On January 2, 2008, former Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia, 
Hadi A. Wayarabi, was sentenced to 30 months in jail for 
corruption in the collection of immigration document fees. 
Wayarabi was found guilty of involvement in the collection of 
illegal fees from Indonesians needing immigration documents 
at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2000-2003. 
 
On January 4, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) 
indicted former Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia, 
Rusdihardjo, and immigration section chief Arihken Tarigan, 
as graft suspects.  Both Rusdihardjo and Tarigan were 
suspected of corruption during their time as officials in 
Kuala Lumpur between January 2004 and October 2005. 
 
On May 8, 2007, the KPK found Eda Makmur, a former consul 
general in Johor Baru, Malaysia, guilty of graft in 
overcharging for passport fees and sentenced him to two years 
in prison. 
 
The Corruption Eradication Commission's prosecution team 
indicted former director general of manpower education and 
inspection Marudin Saur Marulitua Simanihuruk on corruption 
in relation to the 2004 audit of funds for foreign workers in 
Indonesia.  On February 28, the Anti-corruption Court began 
proceedings against Marudin, together with another manpower 
ministry official, Suseno Tjipto Mantoro.  Both face 20-year 
jail terms. 
 
II. PREVENTION OF TRAFFICKING 
------------------------------ 
 
A 2007 survey contracted by USAID included questions on 
Indonesian migrant workers, revealing a high awareness level 
of the dangers of working abroad:  about two-thirds of 
Indonesians believed that Indonesians who work abroad are 
likely to suffer from physical or psychological abuse from 
employers, while 60 percent believed that it is not worth 
seeking work abroad because of the high costs.  Only three 
percent have seriously considered working abroad, and among 
those who do not want to work abroad, 15 percent said they 
fear mistreatment, while 21 percent say the costs of seeking 
work abroad are too high.  While this was the first time this 
issue was surveyed, it does indicate that publicity and 
public awareness campaigns might be raising awareness of the 
risks of being trafficked. 
 
In January 2007, the National Agency for the Placement and 
Protection of Overseas Workers was (BNP) was established. 
The agency took over the Ministry of Manpower's 
responsibilities to protect migrant workers, such as 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  011.2 OF 025 
 
 
facilitating labor export and providing legal protection. 
The agency was established as required by the 2004 Overseas 
Labor Placement and Protection Law.  The law also requires 
the government and the new agency to supply workers only to 
countries that have labor agreements with Indonesia.    This 
new body is directly responsible to the president. Through 
this same decree, GOI will decentralize Migrant Holding 
Centers to the district level which will benefit migrant 
workers because it will reduce the cost of travel to the 
centers, facilitate monitoring of the centers and reduce the 
potential for manipulation of the documents. Social controls 
of abuses at the local levels are believed to be stronger and 
thus help better protect workers from trafficking. 
 
During its first year of operation, BNP did very little to 
increase protection of migrant workers.  Far from 
recommending the closure of abusive manpower companies, the 
number of brokers increased under BNP's supervision and 
corruption continued. 
 
The Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2007 
established a medical clinic at the shelter in the Embassy. 
The embassy has two doctors on call to provide basic medical 
services to stranded migrants at the shelter, regardless of 
whether they are victims of trafficking.  Now, each stranded 
migrant worker at the embassy is entitled to a free medical 
check up and treatment.  The embassy pays for these medical 
services in full.  Apart from that, exit documents needed for 
victims of trafficking to leave Kuala Lumpur are obtained 
quicker than in the past.  In the past, victims would be at 
the shelter for well over year and this is being cut back to 
a few months. Also, all consulates (Penang, Johor Baru, 
Kuching, Kota Kinabalu) and the embassy are actively 
screening all migrants for victims of trafficking.  The staff 
are using the IOM's screening form (based on UN definition of 
trafficking).  Once migrants are identified as victims of 
trafficking, they are immediately referred to IOM for 
assistance. 
 
GOI ANTI-TIP CAMPAIGNS 
---------------------- 
 
The following activities have been undertaken to prevent 
trafficking: 
 
-- The Ministry of National Education has funded activities 
to eliminate Child Drug Trafficking. 
 
--West Nusa Tenggara's (NTB) provincial government allocated 
USD10 million for its migrant worker empowerment program in 
¶2007. 
 
--The East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) provincial government 
allocated USD 24,000 to assist migrant workers who experience 
hardship in their overseas workplaces. 
 
--On February 16, 2008, the Lombok Barat Parliament passed 
the West Lombok Regional Regulation on Migrant Worker 
Protection, establishing a Migrant Worker Protection 
Commission to investigate and settle migrant worker problems. 
 
 
In Surabaya, The Forum of Concerned Women was created in 
November 2007, focusing on human trafficking. 
 
--The North Sulawesi Government established an Integrated 
Service Center for Women and Children, as did Cirebon, West 
Java. 
 
--In 2007, East Java provincial government worked together 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  012.2 OF 025 
 
 
with NGOs to formulate guidance on how to handle trafficking 
cases. 
 
--In Manado, the Bureau of Women's Empowerment in North 
Sulawesi, the NGO Swara Parangpuan and the Manado Port 
Authority have successfully cooperated to apprehend 
traffickers and rescue victims before they depart. 
 
-- As a contribution to prevention efforts, Nusa Tengarra 
Barat province's Legal Aid Association (LBH) provided legal 
assistance to five villages in East Lombok to help formulate 
village regulations regarding the recruitment of migrant 
workers. 
 
--The East Java government established a Rapid Response  Team 
in 2007 to assist the victims of trafficking.  It is 
comprised of local government employees and NGO workers and 
provides social, psychological and legal counseling. 
 
-- In 2007, the East Java government signed an MOU with 
regencies and cities in the province to work together to 
handle the return of trafficking victims.  The Provincial 
government bears the responsibility for returning trafficking 
victims to their homes, while government at the regency and 
municipal levels bears responsibility for monitoring and 
preventing trafficking victims from being re-trafficked. 
 
--The North Sulawesi Department of Religious Affairs 
established a counseling center in 2007 to provide  religious 
counseling to the victims of trafficking. 
 
Media coverage of trafficking, both domestic and 
international, expanded over recent years.  National 
television, radio and print media, and local newspapers 
routinely covered TIP issues.  Investigative journalism shows 
highlighted the crime. 
 
GOI SUPPORT TO OTHER PREVENTION PROGRAMS 
---------------------------------------- 
 
The GOI supported and administeredd other national programs 
related to the prevention of trafficking, but not designed 
specifically as anti-trafficking efforts.  These programs 
commonly faced serious constraints in terms of GOI limited 
funds, institutional capacity, and corruption.  Some of the 
more relevant programs were: 
 
-- A program to encourage free basic public education through 
the first nine years of schooling, including subsidies for 
students from poor families.  A number of districts announced 
their achievement of free public schooling. 
 
-- School Subsidy Operation providing a subsidy to poor 
people who were directly affected by the policy to increase 
the price of oil. 
 
-- A program to encourage birth registrations, coupled with a 
law that mandates government offices to provide birth 
certificates free of charge.  At least 21 local governments 
began free provision of birth certificates. 
 
-- A national program to eliminate gender inequality in 
education. 
 
-- Programs to train female migrant workers. 
 
-- Credit schemes for micro-businesses, some of which focused 
on women. 
 
-- Revolving credit schemes for cooperatives and savings and 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  013.2 OF 025 
 
 
loan associations. 
 
-- The Directorate of Women and Child Labor Monitoring in the 
Manpower Ministry has allocated funds for the establishment 
and operation of Provincial and District Action Committees on 
the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor. 
 
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOI, NGOs AND OTHER ELEMENTS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
The overall relationship between relevant GOI offices and 
NGOs remained cooperative and mutually supportive on 
TIP-related issues.  Cooperation varied from agency to agency 
and location to location.  The GOI recognized the importance 
of NGO expertise, networks and involvement.  NGOs met 
regularly with officials and participated in national and 
local task forces.  The GOI and NGOs collaborated on many TIP 
initiatives, including in protection of victims, public 
awareness raising, and in providing assistance to law 
enforcement officials in investigations and prosecutions. The 
police and NGOs continued to share information on 
trafficking, although mutual suspicions between NGOs and 
police sometimes prevented their cooperation. 
 
MONITORING OF IMMIGRATION/EMIGRATION 
------------------------------------ 
 
The Directorate of Immigration, under a new Director General, 
has made trafficking a top priority, particularly of 
children.  The implementation of bio-metric passports will 
help immigration officials to stop trafficking of girls as 
well. Immigration, police, prosecutors and judges from 
migrant worker transit areas were trained together in 2007. 
 
While efforts to increase passport integrity began, 
Indonesia's passport services, like most other government 
services, remained the object of widespread corruption. 
Indonesians are able to easily obtain passports in false and 
multiple identities.  The lack of computerized nationwide 
passport and immigration records facilitated the work of 
traffickers, and made it difficult to check whether potential 
trafficking victims have left Indonesia.  Recruitment 
agencies routinely falsified birth dates, including for 
children, in order to apply for passports and migrant worker 
documents.  A field visit by Labatt to a border post revealed 
loose controls and rampant corruption. 
 
The GOI did not effectively monitor immigration and 
emigration patterns for evidence of trafficking, with some 
limited exceptions.  On the whole, however, immigration 
officials and law enforcement agencies did not have the 
equipment, capacity or tools to generate useful information, 
or did not prioritize such information. 
 
The Transnational Crime Center (TNCC), which includes 
trafficking as one focus, was established in 2004 and has 
aggressively tackled trafficking. 
 
COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATION MECHANISMS 
----------------------------------------- 
 
In 2006, Indonesia signed the ASEAN Declaration on the 
Protection and Promotion of the Rights and of Migrant 
Workers, committing itself to an extensive list of 
protections.  End update. 
 
At the national level, the Women's Ministry served as the 
focal point for GOI actions on TIP.  The People's Welfare 
Coordinating Ministry, which includes the Women's Ministry 
under its umbrella, also played a key role in coordinating 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  014.2 OF 025 
 
 
efforts across different agencies.  The National Action Plan 
to eliminate trafficking created a Task Force led by the 
People's Welfare Coordinating Minister and the Women's 
Minister, and included some 28 government and law enforcement 
agencies, NGOs, and civil society groups (see above).  Many 
provinces and a number of districts operated task forces for 
coordinating anti-trafficking efforts. 
 
The GOI actively participated in multilateral and 
international coordination efforts to combat trafficking 
under UN, ASEAN and regional frameworks.  As an example, the 
GOI hosted the ASEAN workshop on combating TIP in November 
¶2005. 
 
The GOI has given responsibility for developing 
anti-trafficking programs to the National Anti-Trafficking 
Task Force, created by the National Action Plan, and led by 
the People's Welfare Coordinating Minister and the Women's 
Minister, which includes other government and law enforcement 
agencies, NGOs, and civil society groups.  Responsibility for 
provincial and district-level programs varies from location 
to location.  A growing number of provinces and districts (26 
in total) have their own task forces or committees. 
 
III.  INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
Law Enforcement Increases Two Straight Years 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
Police and prosecutors began using the new anti-trafficking 
law soon after it passed, not waiting for implementing 
regulations; however, other laws were still mostly used in 
2007 pending widespread implementation of the new law.  These 
laws included the Penal Code, Child Protection Act, the 
Manpower Placement Act and the Manpower Act. 
For the second year in a row, law enforcement against 
traffickers increased dramatically in 2007 over 2006: arrests 
increased 77 percent from 142 to 252, prosecutions increased 
94 percent from 56 to 109, and convictions increased 27 
percent from 36 to 46.  The average sentence in these cases 
was 45 months.  This data came mostly from the national 
police (INP) and the Attorney General's Office, with some 
cases reported by reliable NGOs.  All data was based on cases 
linked directly to trafficking. 
The 21-man national police anti-trafficking task force has 
worked with local police, Ministry of Manpower, the Migrant 
Workers Protection Agency, Immigration, Foreign Affairs and 
NGOs to shut down several large trafficking syndicates using 
Indonesia as a transit point and rescue hundreds of victims, 
mostly children, according to a February INP report, 
interviews with police and media reports.  While police could 
not share details of every case with us, they did share much 
information.  The two-part "Operation Flower" which began in 
March 2007 and is on-going, targeted trafficked children, 
primarily in sexual exploitation.  In March, this operation 
shut down large operations in red-light districts of Jakarta, 
the Riau islands, Central and West Java and elsewhere, 
arresting dozens of pimps and rescuing dozens of children. 
Separately, local police in North Sumatra, South Sulawesi, 
Bali, Lombok, West Kalimantan and elsewhere, broke up 
trafficking syndicates, using testimony from the victims to 
arrest traffickers 
 and to gain information about links in other countries which 
they shared with those law enforcement authorities.  In 
Pontianak, in May 2007, police allowed emboff to interview 
both a teenage victim still under the care of the GOI after 
escaping from sexual bondage in Malaysia, and the three 
persons who trafficked her, interviewing them in prison. 
Police in late 2007 cooperated with the Manpower Ministry to 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  015.2 OF 025 
 
 
shut down a manpower company that was trafficking workers, 
rescuing over a hundred persons, including children, and 
arresting staff on charges of document falsification. 
 
Internationally, police cited some of the already successful 
anti-trafficking actions completed in 2007, including 
stopping one syndicate trafficking workers to France and 
another to Syria, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.  In yet another 
operation, police broke up a syndicate trafficking Sri 
Lankans to Australia. 
 
In 2007, police had set up 304 women's help desks (RPK) to 
protect women and child victims of violence, including 
trafficking, and also to aid in investigations of these 
crimes, an increase of 24 from 2006.  INP also had set up 
Integrated Service Centers in 36 locations in 2007 where 
specially trained anti-trafficking police work with doctors 
and social service workers at police hospitals to provide 
special treatment for victims.  Complying with the 2007 
anti-trafficking law's requirement to set up special 
interview rooms for trafficking victims, police in major 
cities across Indonesia have already provided these rooms, 
complete with video cameras to record testimony for victims 
who do not want to appear in court and special materials to 
help with interviewing children. 
 
To aid in trafficking investigations, beginning in 2003 the 
police posted liaison officers in Indonesian embassies in 
Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Australia and Thailand. These police 
liaison officers contributed to growing law enforcement 
cooperation particularly with Malaysia.  The Indonesian 
police liaisons in Australia and Saudi Arabia have also 
helped to investigate trafficking in the past. 
 
EXISTING ANTI-TIP LAWS 
---------------------- 
 
The New Anti-Trafficking Law 
---------------------------- 
 
On March 20, 2007, the Indonesian national legislature 
passed Law No. 21 of 2007 on the Eradication of the Criminal 
Act of Trafficking in Persons.  On April 19, the law was 
enacted through the President's signature.  The law does five 
things: 
 
¶1.   Defines trafficking 
¶2.   Establishes harsh punishments 
¶3.   Provides protections for victims and witnesses 
¶4.   Provides services and restitution to victims 
¶5.   Calls for actions to address trafficking 
 
The law stipulated that three implementing regulations must 
be promulgated within six months following enactment. The 
three implementing regulations included: 
 
¶1. Establishment of special police service units (RPK) and 
procedures for examination of witnesses by Regulation of the 
Chief of National Police (Article 45); 
¶2. Procedures and mechanisms for integrated service centers 
by Government Regulation (Article 46); 
¶3. Establishment, organization, membership, budget, and 
operating procedures of the national and local task forces by 
Presidential Decree (Article 58). 
 
The GOI enacted the first regulation in July 2007, through 
the National Police Decree No. 10, to provide the 
organizational structure and procedures for a special unit 
providing services to women and children.  The second 
regulation on integrated services was enacted in February 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  016.2 OF 025 
 
 
¶2008.  The third on organization and budget awaits action by 
the Government Secretariat and Cabinet Secretariat. 
 
The anti-trafficking law meets international standards to 
prevent and outlaw trafficking, and includes a comprehensive 
legal mandate for rescue and rehabilitation of victims.  The 
law outlaws all forms of trafficking including debt bondage 
and sexual exploitation.  It also provides stiff penalties 
for complicity in trafficking by officials and labor agents, 
which include harsh prison sentences.  Penalties for 
trafficking of a child under 18 years range from three to 15 
years in prison, with penalties for officials higher by 
one-third, and fines of between $12,000 and $60,000. 
 
The law defines sexual exploitation as any form of the use of 
sexual organs or other organs of the victim for the purpose 
of obtaining profit, including but not limited to all acts of 
prostitution and sexually indecent acts.  A person who uses 
or takes advantage of a victim of trafficking in persons by 
way of engaging in sex or other indecent acts, or gains 
benefit from the result of the crime, faces a possible prison 
sentence of between three  and fifteen years and a fine of 
between USD12,000 and  USD60,000. 
 
OTHER LAWS 
---------- 
 
The National Plan of Action encourages provincial and local 
governments to their own anti-trafficking regulations and a 
number have done so. Notable are strong anti-trafficking or 
women and child protection laws which reflect local reactions 
to the trafficking problem and are being used vigorously. 
Some of these laws include: 
 
-- North Sulawesi with Regional Regulation No. 1 of 2004 on 
Prevention and Elimination of Trafficking of Women and 
Children. 
-- North Sumatra with Regional Regulation No. 6 of 2004 on 
Prevention and Elimination of Trafficking of Women and 
Children. 
 
--Indramayu District with Local Regulation No. 14 of 2005 on 
Prevention and Prohibition of Trafficking for Child 
Commercial Sexual Exploitation. 
 
--East Java Province with its Local Regulation No. 9 of 2005 
on Provision of Protection for Women and Children Victims of 
Abuse. 
 
--Sumbawa District with its Local Regulation No. 11 of 2003 
on Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers originating from 
Sumbawa, and a similar regulation in East Lombok (2006). 
 
In 2004, the DPR passed Law 39/2004 on the protection of 
migrant workers abroad.  The law provides greater regulation 
of the migrant worker recruiting and placement process.  It 
establishes jail sentences of 2 to 15 years for unlicensed 
labor recruitment agencies. 
 
Indonesia has also ratified almost all major conventions 
relating to trafficking. In addition to those referred to 
above, Indonesia has ratified ILO Convention 29 on Forced 
Labor, the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination 
against Women, and has signed the optional protocol to the 
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of 
Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. Indonesia 
has also signed the UN Convention against Transnational 
Organized Crime and its supplemental Protocol to Prevent, 
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women 
and Children. 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  017.2 OF 025 
 
 
 
PENALTIES FOR RAPE OR FORCIBLE SEXUAL ASSAULT 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
The Criminal Code, Article 285, stipulates a maximum of 12 
years imprisonment for rape committed outside of marriage. 
Other generally less severe criminal sanctions apply for 
sexual intercourse with a minor, forcing a person to commit 
an act of sexual abuse of a minor, facilitating minors to 
perform acts of obscenity, and other related offenses.  The 
12-year maximum jail sentence for rape exceeds the 6-year 
maximum for trafficking under the Criminal Code, but is 
similar to the 15-year maximum penalty for trafficking of 
children under the Child Protection Act. 
 
PROSTITUTION NOT LEGAL, BUT WIDESPREAD 
-------------------------------------- 
 
As a matter of national law, Indonesia has not legalized 
prostitution.  Indonesia's Penal Code does not explicitly 
mention prostitution, but the Code's Chapter 14 refers to 
"crimes against decency/morality," which many within national 
and local governments interpret to apply to prostitution. 
Central government officials contacted by the Embassy agreed 
in their interpretation that the Penal Code renders 
prostitution illegal.  The prostitution of children is 
clearly illegal under the Penal Code and the 2002 Child 
Protection Act. 
 
The Penal Code can be used to prosecute the acts of pimps, 
brothel owners and enforcers on the basis of various crimes, 
including:  using violence or threats of violence to force 
persons to conduct indecent acts (Article 289, with a maximum 
penalty of nine years in jail); facilitating indecent acts 
(Article 296, with a possible jail term of 16 months); 
conducing/facilitating public indecency (Article 281); and 
making profits from the indecent acts of a woman (Article 
506, with a possible one-year jail sentence).  In practice, 
authorities rarely pursued such charges against those 
involved in prostitution. 
 
Clients of child prostitutes can be charged under the Penal 
Code and the Child Protection Act.  In theory, married 
persons who are clients of prostitutes can be charged for 
engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage (Penal Code 
Article 284).  In general, police did not arrest and pursue 
charges against clients of prostitutes. 
 
While contrary to societal and religious norms in Indonesia, 
the practice of prostitution is widespread and largely 
tolerated in many areas of the country, particularly when it 
is not a matter of public display.  Although contrary to 
national interpretations that the Penal Code prohibits 
prostitution, authorities in some localities have formally or 
informally regulated prostitution in response to community 
pressure. 
In some areas, including certain locations in Papua, brothel 
owners registered prostitutes with the police with a view to 
demonstrating that the prostitutes are not coerced or 
underage. 
 
Some local governments gained important tax revenues from 
otherwise legal entertainment businesses, such as karaoke 
bars, that also offer prostitution.  Individual police and 
other officials also gained illegal income as a result of 
prostitution.  These factors encouraged the tendency to 
tolerate prostitution, according to observers. 
 
In East Java, the province's Child Protection Commission, 
police, city authorities, and NGO representatives in May 2005 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  018.2 OF 025 
 
 
launched a network to monitor and prevent trafficking of 
children into prostitution.  The network monitors brothels 
and reports to the social services office and police if a 
brothel employs a child prostitute.  In 2007, this resulted 
in a decrease of child prostitutes from 68 to 8, according to 
an ILO survey. 
 
INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUES 
------------------------ 
 
In some instances, the police, particularly those who had 
received anti-trafficking training, used active investigation 
techniques to develop trafficking cases.  The police used 
undercover operations to some extent.  In the past, police 
occasionally employed electronic surveillance using technical 
expertise developed for counter-terrorism.  Information 
collected through electronic surveillance is not admissible 
in Indonesian courts except in cases of terrorism.  The 
cooperation of victims and witnesses was important to police 
and prosecutors in making cases against traffickers. 
According to a number of the police, GOI officials and NGOs, 
victims frequently avoided testifying because of the 
prolonged nature of court cases, their desire to return to 
their home areas and lack of financial assistance to maintain 
themselves.  This complicated prosecution efforts.  In some 
cases, police did not detain suspects, who then subsequently 
disappeared and did not present themselves in court. 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING 
-------------------- 
 
Training of law enforcement officials by USG and 
international NGOs greatly increased this year, with strong 
cooperation by Indonesian officials. Over a thousand police, 
prosecutors and judges were trained on trafficking in 2007. 
 
COOPERATION WITH OTHER GOVERNMENTS 
---------------------------------- 
 
The GOI cooperated with other governments, particularly 
Malaysia, in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking 
cases dQing this reporting period.  Indonesian and Malaysian 
law enforcement officers worked together to stop trafficking 
operations. 
 
In the past, Indonesia and Australia cooperated in the 
investigations of Australian pedophiles victimizing children 
in Bali, and syndicates trafficking women to Australia. 
 
Indonesian police and other officials cooperated actively 
with U.S. law enforcement to arrest and expel wanted American 
citizen pedophiles. 
 
EXTRADITION 
----------- 
 
Indonesia maintains extradition treaties with only five 
countries or territories, but very seldom utilizes this 
mechanism to seek extradition of its citizens, preferring 
less formal options such as rendering and deportation. 
Indonesia does not have a history of extraditing or rendering 
its own citizens to other countries. 
 
Indonesia did not extradite any traffickers during this 
reporting period and there were no reports of such requests 
from other countries. 
 
Indonesian police and officials have cooperated with foreign 
governments, including the U.S. and Australia, in the 
apprehension and repatriation of foreign sex offenders. 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  019.2 OF 025 
 
 
 
GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IN OR TOLERANCE OF TRAFFICKING 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
Some government officials and individual members of the 
security forces facilitated, tolerated, or were involved in 
TIP on a variety of levels.  The GOI in past reports 
acknowledged this fact, which has been widely reported by 
groups working on trafficking.  The most common example of 
such complicity was in the production of national identity 
cards.  In local communities, low-level officials certified 
false information to produce national identity cards and 
family data cards for children to allow them to work as 
adults.  They commonly did so in order to collect bribes and 
also to assist poor families in gaining additional wage 
earners.  In most cases, these officials facilitated such 
cards without knowing the children will be trafficked.  In a 
much smaller number of cases, the local officials presumably 
were aware that they are facilitating trafficking.  Based on 
the identity cards, traffickers processed passports and work 
visas for children who otherwise would not be able to obtain 
such documents.  With less than 30 percent of all births 
registered in the country, and such registrations also 
subject to falsification, authorities often had little legal 
basis to challenge documents containing false information. 
 
At the Jakarta international airport migrant worker transit 
center, "Terminal Three," returning migrant workers are 
forced to pay a wide variety of unofficial fees in order to 
go home. 
 
Some officials in local Manpower offices reportedly licensed 
and tolerated migrant worker recruiting agencies despite the 
officials' knowledge of the agencies' involvement in 
trafficking. In return for bribes, some Immigration officials 
turned a blind eye to potential 
trafficking victims, failing to screen or act with due 
diligence in processing passports and immigration control. 
Local governments' informal or formal regulation of and 
alleged profiteering from established prostitution zones in 
larger cities also raised concerns about local officials' 
involvement and tolerance of trafficking. 
 
In 2007, officials of the Migrant Worker Placement and 
Protection Agency posted at airports allowed returning 
trafficking victims to be taken by officially sanctioned 
transport back to the manpower company that trafficked them 
to begin with, returning them to debt bondage, Migrant Care 
reported. 
 
Individual members of the police and military were associated 
with brothels and prostitution fronts, most frequently 
through the collection of protection money, which was a 
widespread practice.  Sometimes off-duty security force 
members worked as security personnel at brothels.  Security 
force members also involved themselves in prostitution as 
brothel owners or through other illicit business interests, 
according to NGOs and other reports.  As one prominent 
example, NGOs continued to report the involvement of 
Indonesian navy personnel and police in the Dolly 
prostitution complex in Surabaya, one of Southeast Asia's 
largest brothel areas.  A 2005 NGO examination of trafficking 
in Papua also found indications of police and military 
personnel involved in trafficking. 
 
NGOs described the involvement in TIP of individual police 
and military members primarily as one of extorting protection 
money from brothel owners and pimps, and of not taking 
proactive steps to free underage or other trafficked 
prostitutes.  In past years, there have been reports of 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  020.2 OF 025 
 
 
police officers assisting pimps to return runaway prostitutes 
to brothels.  The NGOs did not report any examples of 
security force members actively recruiting or forcing 
children into prostitution. 
 
 
STEPS TO END OFFICIALS' INVOLVEMENT IN TRAFFICKING 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
As reported above, the GOI has begun to seriously take action 
against officials involved in trafficking, including 
corruption charges, administrative sanctions, dismissals and 
transfers. The impact of these few but unprecedented actions 
is beginning to change the culture of impunity. 
Unfortunately, this type of action is not being applied to 
military officials involved in trafficking, particularly of 
women and girls trapped in prostitution. 
 
There were no GOI reports of the security forces prosecuting 
or disciplining their own members for involvement in 
prostitution or other activities related to trafficking. 
 
FOREIGN PEDOPHILES PROSECUTED, DEPORTED 
--------------------------------------- 
 
 
On February 26, 2007, the South Jakarta District Court 
sentenced Australian pedophile Peter William Smith to ten 
years in prison after he was found guilty of sexually 
assaulting more than 50 under-age children between 2003 and 
¶2006.  Smith, a language teacher, was arrested in Jakarta 
after seven children complained he had sexually abused them. 
A second suspect committed suicide believing police were 
about to arrest him. 
 
Police say pedophile cases are particularly difficult to 
prosecute since affected boys and girls and their families 
are reluctant to file reports against the perpetrators. 
 
RATIFICATION OF INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS 
----------------------------------------- 
 
Indonesia has signed and in most cases ratified international 
instruments related to the worst forms of child labor and the 
trafficking of women and children: 
 
-- The GOI signed ILO Convention 182 concerning the 
elimination of the worst forms of child labor and ratified 
this with Law No. 1 of 2000 on March 8, 2000. 
 
-- Indonesia ratified ILO Convention 29 on Forced Labor in 
¶1950.  The GOI ratified ILO Convention 105 on the Abolition 
of Forced Labor in 1999. 
 
-- Indonesia signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention 
on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child 
Prostitution and Child Pornography, and ratified this in 
September 2001. 
 
-- Indonesia signed in December 2000 the UN Convention 
Against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol to 
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.  The GOI 
has not yet ratified the Convention and Protocol. 
 
-- On September 25, 2003, Indonesia signed the Convention for 
the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the 
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, 1950, and the 
Convention's Final Protocol.  Indonesia has not yet ratified 
these instruments. 
 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  021.2 OF 025 
 
 
 
----------------------------------------- 
IV.  PROTECTION AND ASSISTANCE TO VICTIMS 
----------------------------------------- 
 
GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE TO VICTIMS 
-------------------------------- 
 
National and local level assistance efforts continued or 
increased over the past year, although they remained small in 
comparison with the scope of the problem.  The GOI and police 
operated 41 "integrated service centers," providing health 
services to TIP and other victims of violence.  Four of these 
are full medical recovery centers specifically for 
trafficking victims.  The GOI pays for about a third of the 
cost of treating victims by offering intensive care treatment 
for the cost of ordinary care funded by IOM. These 
trafficking victim recovery centers treated thousands of 
patients since opening in 2005. The integrated service 
centers in Jakarta at the Kramatjati police hospital as well 
as service centers in Surabaya, Pontianak and Makassar 
provide support services such as temporary shelter, medical, 
psychological, and legal assistance. 
 
Authorities continued to round-up and deport a small number 
of foreign prostitutes without screening them for possible 
trafficking victims.   Various GOI offices and diplomatic 
missions received training on TIP victim recognition and 
assistance, training for personnel at the Mission in Malaysia 
making great progress in 2006. 
 
An increasing number of NGOs and community based 
organizations have set up Women's Crisis Centers, Drop in 
Centers or Shelters.  Local governments worked together with 
NGOs and civil society groups to establish and operate 
shelters for TIP victims, in key transit points like Dumai, 
Riau Province, and Batam, Riau Islands Province, and in 
Entekong on the West Kalimantan border with Malaysia.  Local 
governments also used social services offices and police 
women's desks as temporary shelters.  Women's bureaus in 
provinces like East Java, North Sumatra, and Riau Islands 
budgeted modest funding for victims' services. 
 
The Foreign Ministry operated shelters for trafficking 
victims and migrant workers at its embassies and consulates 
in a number of countries, including Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, 
Kuwait, and Singapore.  Over the course of 2007, these 
diplomatic establishments sheltered thousands of Indonesian 
citizens, including trafficking victims.  Indonesian 
diplomatic missions, in coordination with other GOI agencies, 
assisted with repatriation of trafficking victims. 
 
The Social Affairs Ministry Directorate of Social Assistance 
for Victims of Violence and Migrant Workers assisted victims 
returning from overseas since domestic cases normally fall 
under the responsibility of local governments.  In 2007, the 
Ministry provided some repatriation assistance to tens of 
thousands of migrant workers, the vast majority of whom 
returned from Malaysia.  This included transportation, basic 
medical care, and food for some of these returnees. The 
Directorate provided some training to provincial Social 
Affairs offices.  The Ministry also operated women's 
rehabilitation centers and assisted with crisis centers, 
including the Children's Crisis Center established in Jakarta 
in 2002. 
 
The provincial government in East Java established a women's 
crisis center in 2003 that serviced trafficking victims and 
other women who suffered violence. Police and public 
hospitals provided medical care to trafficking victims, in 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  022.2 OF 025 
 
 
accordance with a GOI directive (see below). 
 
In 2004, the Women's Ministry, with input from international 
and local NGOs, finalized standard operating procedures 
(SOPs) to be used when assisting trafficking victims to 
ensure their protection.  This was in accordance with the 
anti-trafficking National Action Plan's goal of having the 
SOPs in place by 2004.  The Ministry began to train officials 
in the SOPs during 2005. 
 
GOI SUPPORT FOR NGO SERVICES TO VICTIMS 
--------------------------------------- 
 
The GOI provided some funding to domestic NGOs and civil 
society groups that supported services for TIP victims, 
usually as part of a larger program rather than one focused 
exclusively on trafficking.  At the national level, for 
example, the People's Welfare Coordinating Ministry and the 
Social Affairs Ministry provided food assistance to social 
centers and safe houses nationwide.  Local governments in 
North Sulawesi, North Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Riau Islands, 
and East Java funded NGOs to provide services to some 
victims, including shelters, medical exams and training. 
 
SCREENING AND REFERRAL OF VICTIMS 
--------------------------------- 
 
In Jakarta, a screening system is in place at the Tanjung 
Priok seaport to refer cases of abused migrant workers and 
trafficking victims to the city's police hospital.  NGOs 
active in migrant worker advocacy also identify and refer 
returned migrant workers who need medical attention.  An NGO 
screening process was also in practice in Surabaya.  However, 
at Jakarta international airport, during a February visit, 
the Labor Attach observed that trafficking victims are not 
screened at all by the migrant protection officials 
responsible at that location. The Labor Attach witnessed one 
mentally disturbed woman handcuffed to a cot receiving no 
care, while another severely abused victim had slept for two 
days at the terminal because she did not have funds for 
transportation home.  NGOs reported that migrant workers 
returning to this location are never screened for abuse or 
referred to treatment facilities as required under the 
anti-trafficking law. 
 
Women's help desks at provincial and district level police 
offices typically have formal or informal arrangements in 
place with local NGO's to provide short-term shelter and a 
modicum of care for trafficking victims.  In general, 
long-term care does not appear to be available.  A current 
U.S.-funded project, implemented by IOM, has begun to develop 
models of better and longer-term care for trafficking victims. 
 
RESPECT FOR THE RIGHTS OF VICTIMS 
--------------------------------- 
 
The GOI's written policy, found in its annual trafficking 
report, is that, "from a legal perspective, the Government 
treats persons who are trafficked not as criminals, but as 
victims who need help and protection."  The People's Welfare 
Coordinating Ministry, the Women's Ministry, and training 
conducted by international NGOs and DOJ/ICITAP, reinforced 
this policy during the year in public settings and trainings 
of police and other officials.  Police who received ICITAP 
training demonstrated greater awareness of and respect for 
TIP victims. 
 
Local government and police practice varied, particularly in 
the lower ranks of law enforcement agencies.  Local 
governments, exercising greater authority under the nation's 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  023.2 OF 025 
 
 
decentralization program, sometimes enacted regulations that 
tend to treat trafficked prostitutes as criminals, contrary 
to national policy.  In many instances, GOI officials and 
police actively protected and assisted victims.  In other 
cases, police officers treated victims, particularly 
trafficked prostitutes, as criminals, subjected them to 
detention, and took advantage of their vulnerability to 
demand bribes and sexual services.  The media and lower level 
officials, including police, frequently failed to protect 
victims' identities and commonly provided victims' names to 
the public. 
 
The GOI's policy is not to detain or imprison trafficking 
victims.  Police implementation of this policy varies in 
practice.  Not all local government laws comply with this 
policy.  Local police often arrested prostitutes, presumably 
including trafficking victims, who operated outside 
recognized prostitution zones on charges of violating public 
order.  Police raids on prostitute areas commonly resulted in 
the arrest of prostitutes, rather than users or pimps.  On 
occasion, the police detained victims, sometimes to gain 
their testimony or in the belief they were protecting the 
victims from traffickers.  In other cases, police detained 
victims in order to extract bribes. 
 
While there appeared to be a growing understanding of the 
need to protect Indonesian victims of trafficking, this was 
not the case for foreign prostitutes.  Police and immigration 
officials deport foreign prostitutes without screening them 
as possible trafficking victims. 
 
ENCOURAGING VICTIMS TO ASSIST INVESTIGATIONS/PROSECUTIONS 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
The GOI encourages victims to assist in the investigation and 
prosecution of traffickers.  The GOI reported that victims 
frequently were reluctant or refused to provide testimony out 
of shame and fear of retribution against themselves and their 
families. 
 
In previous periods, there have been reports of police 
officers who refused to receive complaints from trafficking 
victims, but insisted instead that victims and traffickers 
reach an informal settlement (for example, payment of debts 
in return for a prostitute's release from a brothel). 
 
PROTECTIONS FOR VICTIMS AND WITNESSES 
------------------------------------- 
 
The functions of the women's help desks at provincial and 
district level police stations include protection of women 
and children during the police investigation process of 
crimes such as trafficking.  Some of the desks functioned 
reasonably well, while others did not function adequately. 
With the new anti-trafficking law and the Witness Protection 
law, police routinely offer witnesses special protection such 
as giving testimony via videotape. 
 
TRAINING FOR OFFICIALS TO RECOGNIZE/ASSIST VICTIMS 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
The National Action Plan calls for training of government 
officials in recognizing trafficking and assisting victims, 
to be carried out in the 2003-2007 timeframe.  The GOI 
conducted such training on an ad hoc basis through various 
seminars, workshops and government meetings.  INP and 
Immigration both conducted anti-trafficking training, 
including victim recognition, over the past year. 
 
NGOs and international organizations have assisted in the 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  024.2 OF 025 
 
 
training of Indonesian officials.  IOM and ICMC have worked 
with Indonesian diplomatic offices in Malaysia to improve 
their screening procedures for potential trafficking victims. 
 
The relationship between Indonesian diplomatic missions and 
NGOs abroad that serve trafficking victims appears to vary 
greatly. 
 
ASSISTANCE TO REPATRIATED NATIONALS 
----------------------------------- 
 
The GOI, both at the national and locals levels, provides 
some measure of assistance, including limited medical aid, 
shelter, and financial help, to its repatriated nationals who 
were trafficking victims.  In general, the government at 
various levels provided more attention and assistance to 
repatriated victims compared with victims of internal 
trafficking.  In 2007, the GOI greatly improved its level of 
care for victims held at Embassy shelters overseas.  In some 
cases the GOI paid the cost to fly victims from Malaysia to 
Indonesia. 
 
NGO'S WORKING WITH TRAFFICKING VICTIMS 
-------------------------------------- 
 
Some of the more prominent NGOs are Solidaritas Perempuan 
(Jakarta), LBH-Apik (Jakarta and West Kalimantan), Yayasan 
Mitra Kesehatan dan Kemanusiaan or YMKK (Batam), Rifka Anisa 
(Yogyakarta) and LADA (Lampung).  Some labor unions also 
provided services to trafficking victims.  The activities of 
these groups related to TIP include:  legal assistance, 
prevention and education programs, medical services, clinics 
for children, research and advocacy, counseling, reproductive 
health, HIV/AIDS prevention, and 
shelters.  More NGOs have emerged over the past several 
years, including Migrant Care, currently a leading advocacy 
body for migrant worker rights and anti-trafficking. 
 
The GOI continued strong cooperation with NGOs over the past 
year in the area of assistance to trafficking victims.  In 
some cases government offices relied heavily on NGO inputs 
and advice.  GOI offices provided licenses to organizations 
and access to trafficking victims, included NGOs on national 
and local action committees, and interceded with law 
enforcement agencies in some cases to permit NGOs to carry 
out their activities.  NGOs frequently interacted with the 
police, though mutual suspicions limited the interaction in 
some areas. 
 
--------- 
¶V. HEROES 
--------- 
 
Nirmala Bonat is an Indonesia maid who has relentlessly 
pursued justice in Malaysian courts for nearly four years 
since being brutally beaten and burned on her breasts with an 
iron in 2004 by her Malaysian employer.  Despite suffering 
from the anguish of being trapped in the Indonesian Embassy 
migrant shelter in Kuala Lumpur, and being humiliated in 
court, she has stood her ground, refusing to return home and 
give up her case.  In doing so, she has because the cause 
clbre for abused trafficking victims worldwide, and an 
inspiration for others to stand up for their rights.  A poor, 
uneducated 19-year-old woman when she arrived in Malaysia 
four years ago, her courage is all the more remarkable given 
her powerless position in society.  Nirmala's choice as a TIP 
hero would demonstrate that victims also have power, and also 
can be heroes for simply refusing to be beaten down. 
 
------------------ 
 
JAKARTA 00000415  025.2 OF 025 
 
 
VI. BEST PRACTICES 
------------------ 
 
East Java TIP Task Force (KAP) was its first in Indonesia, 
established by the governor in 2004. It was developed to 
coordinate anti-trafficking efforts of various agencies and 
institutions throughout the province. Members of KAP are 
NGOs, relevant government departments (to include health, 
social services, employment, human rights, law enforcement, 
prosecutors, port authority officials, and other related 
institutions).  It meets regularly and government agencies 
and NGOs share information fully.  KAP has made great strides 
in reducing human trafficking in East Java to include 
prevention efforts, reintegration of victims and assistance 
for trafficking victims. 
 
KAP established a rapid response team to provide social, 
psychological, and legal counseling for trafficking victims. 
In 2007, KAP formulated guidance on how to handle trafficking 
cases.  This guidance will be distributed to an 
anti-trafficking task force at the regency/city level in East 
Java. KAP also signed an MOU with regencies and cities in the 
province to work together to handle the return of trafficking 
victims. KAP has a responsibility to return the victims to 
their homes, while local government at the regency and city 
levels has an obligation to monitor and prevent trafficking 
victims from being re-trafficked. Besides providing five 
dollars for each trafficking victim who is returned to his or 
her home village, KAP allocates a special budget for proving 
food assistance for trafficking victims while they are 
staying in the shelter waiting to be returned.  KAP is a 
model for how communities can work together to fight 
trafficking. 
 
HUME