VZCZCXRO0400
PP RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #1005/01 1430141
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 220141Z MAY 08 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9067
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 5058
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2529
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 1021
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 1857
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1994
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 2665
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 2684
RUEHPT/AMCONSUL PERTH 0813
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 001005 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G/TIP (JSIGMON) EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, DRL/IL, DRL/PHD 
DOL FOR ILAB:BSASSER 
NSC FOR EPHU 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ELAB ID
SUBJECT: TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS -- BREAKTROUGH IN TRAINING 
KEY AGENCIES 
 
REF: A. JAKARTA 616 
     ¶B. JAKARTA 415 
     ¶C. JAKARTA 191 
     ¶D. (07) JAKARTA 1560 
 
JAKARTA 00001005  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1.  (U) This message is Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please 
handle accordingly. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  In a major breakthrough in fighting 
trafficking in persons (TIP), senior officials from 
Indonesia's Manpower Ministry and the Overseas Manpower 
Protection Agency (OMPA) recently participated in Department 
of Justice/OPDAT training for prosecutors.  These two 
agencies--which have requested additional USG training--were 
cited in the 2007 TIP report as being the least willing to 
take steps to enforce the Indonesia's new anti-trafficking 
law.  Their willingness to participate in training programs 
is a product of concerted outreach by Mission.  END SUMMARY. 
 
COMMITTING TO TRAINING 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Labatt and the DOJ Intermittent Legal Advisor (ILA) 
met OMPA Director Jumhur Hidayat in early April.  During our 
discussion with Hidayat, he committed to sending senior 
officials to OPDAT training and followed through by sending 
two officials to the April 29 workshop in Bogor, West Java 
(see below for details of this workshop).  After hearing how 
useful the workshop was, Hidayat committed to send more 
officials to workshops in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and 
Manado, North Sulawesi, two hotspots for trafficking.  OMPA 
subsequently sent four officials to the May 13-14 workshop in 
Pontianak at its own expense as speakers and participants. 
The Manado workshop is scheduled for late May. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The Manpower Ministry has made a similar commitment 
to particpate in OPDAT training.  At an International Labor 
Organization (ILO) workshop held in January, Labatt delivered 
remarks calling for increased Manpower enforcement against 
trafficking (ref C).  I Gusti Made Arka, Manpower's Secretary 
General for Supervision and Monitoring, took our comments to 
heart and in April convened a meeting of all department heads 
to hear Labatt concerns.  At that meetig, he assigned his 
Deparrtment heads to attend OPAT training which ILAA 
subsequently arranged.  A senior official, who Arka assigned 
to address the April 29 conference, gave a thoughtful talk on 
the need for strong law enforcement and regulation, citing 
instances where labor recruitment agencies had engaged in 
unlawful practices.  Arka subsequently asked that similar 
training be extended to hundreds of officials nationwide, 
conveyed to ILA in a handwritten note. 
 
SUCCESSFUL WORKSHOPS 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Four senior Manpower Ministry officials each 
heading a Manpower department, and two senior OMPA officials, 
attended the two-day OPDAT training along with 25 experienced 
prosecutors.  Speakers at the Bogor conference included ILA 
John Shipley; Damianus Bilo, the TIP legal expert working for 
DOJ and ICITAP; Azhar Usman, director of health and safety 
regulation for the Ministry of Manpower; Irawati Harsono, a 
well-known former police official who has worked extensively 
with TIP cases and victims; Nia Sujani, a prominent labor 
attorney who has been an active voice on TIP issues; Payaman, 
a senior Indonesian prosecutor and a member of the Attorney 
General Office's Terrorism and Transnational Crimes Task 
Force, which handles major TIP prosecutions throughout 
Indonesia; and Surung Aratonang, the chief of the Bogor area 
prosecutor's office. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Working with Labatt to involve officials from the 
two leading agencies responsible for worker protection, the 
ILA designed the course to incorporate aspects relevant to 
these agencies.  The training had three goals: 
 
--First, to educate participants about the new 
anti-trafficking law and other Indonesian laws applicable to 
 
JAKARTA 00001005  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
labor trafficking and how they all fit together; 
--Second, to reemphasize the importance of human trafficking 
prosecutions and the unique problems and harms of trafficking 
for purposes of labor exploitation; 
--Third, to make participants from the regulatory agencies 
understand that they have a role, and a responsibility, in 
fighting trafficking. 
 
¶7. (SBU) To facilitate discussion at the conferences, and to 
ensure a written resource for future consultation by the 
participants and Pusdiklat, ILA generated a handbook that 
contained: relevant excerpts of an as-yet-unpublished work 
about the new law and TIP prosecutions generally; a copy of 
the 2007 law; a summary of other Indonesian laws that could 
be used in cases of apparent trafficking; and a "thumbnail" 
chart prepared by ILA of laws that could be used to prosecute 
TIP offenders. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) DOJ/ILA conducted a similar program in Pontianak, 
West Kalimantan on May 13.     This area on the island of 
Borneo is a major source of victims who are trafficked 
abroad, yet prosecutors there have not received any prior 
programs related to the 2007 anti-trafficking law, such as 
has been previously provided in Jakarta and other parts of 
Indonesia.  This location, along with Manado, were identified 
by Labatt during field visits as locations with severe 
trafficking problems but strong political will to address 
them if training could be provided (refs A and D). 
 
A BREAKTHROUGH 
 
¶9. (SBU) Manpower and OMPA eagerness to train officials at 
senior levels and requests for more training is a 
breakthrough for anti-TIP efforts.  Manpower has been absent 
from many TIP discussions in the past and when training has 
been offered, they sent low ranking officials who had no 
effect on policy.  For OMPA, formed in early 2007, this is 
the first time that their officials have had any TIP 
training.  With this close cooperation, the U.S. Mission is 
in a strong position to push for more vigorous protection of 
workers against trafficking and other exploitation due to the 
education and goodwill this training had created. 
HEFFERN