One day, Mawar and Melati*, two young women aged about eighteen years old, were offered work as waitresses in a café in Jakarta by their neighbours, Andi and Dani*. Mawar and Melati accepted immediately, without suspicion or a second thought. That's the way it so often happens in poor families where offers of work may be few and far between.
Several days later, Mawar and Melati were taken to Jakarta. When they arrived, they were taken directly to a rental property. That was where the nightmare began. There the two young women were offered to a pimp for 15 million rupiah (approx. US$1,500). The offer was refused on the spot and the transaction cancelled. Then the two of them were offered work as waitresses in a café (warung kopi). They accepted. Andi and Dani received compensation of 600,000 rupiah (approx US$60). Only once they started working, did the two naive girls realise they had been tricked. The “café” was merely a front for a brothel and they were forced to work from midnight until five o’clock in the morning, keeping company and “serving” male guests. On the first night they were forced to drink with the men, however they refused to have sex with them. The next morning, they contacted a relative in Jakarta and managed to escape the “cafe”.
Mawar returned to her village and is now safe. However, Melati, who stayed on with her relative in Jakarta, died two weeks after escaping the cafe when she was hit by a train. Apparently distracted, as a result of the stress and trauma of what she had experienced, Melati walked onto the train tracks, unaware of the train approaching in time to get out of its way.
Mawar and Melati’s story is far from an isolated case. Yet cases of the trafficking of women in Indonesia are still rarely reported. Human trafficking syndicates go to great lengths to keep their activites secret and institutions that are supposed to uphold the law in this country are weak. In addition, many female victims are not aware that they have been trafficked because the perpetrators are people close to and trusted by the victims. This is compounded by social and community values, according to which obedience and self-sacrifice are considered virtues for women. Even worse, many victims worry that in reporting trafficking crimes, particularly those involving sexual abuse, they will ruin their reputation.
Humanitarian Crime
Women and children who are trafficked experience conditions similar or the same as slavery. Their right to determine their own fate is stripped from them and they live in a situation of fear and discomfort. For individual victims of trafficking, the experience of being trafficked is physically and psychologically traumatic and may even become a matter of life and death. Trafficked women often experience violence towards themselves or their families. This violence takes many different forms, from restrictions of movement or liberty, to verbal abuse, forced labour, sexual abuse, and physical beatings causing bodily harm and in some cases death.
The trafficking of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation also causes individuals to experience psychological trauma. Even if women manage to escape the world of prostitution, they may experience feelings of dirtiness, worthlessness and degradation. Such feelings can make women vulnerable to further exploitation and abuse.
The weakness of community and government awareness
It is true that the government has already made attempts to address the crime of human trafficking with the release of Parliamentary Act No. 21/2007 concerning the Elimination of the Crime of Human Trafficking. However, its implementation does not yet appear to have yielded results. This is because the creation of a legal umbrella in the form of parliamentary acts is not sufficient when cooperation and coordination between government and, law enforcement apparatuses and community leaders does not run smoothly. The crime of human trafficking is a serious crime that causes a great deal of damage in communities. Therefore it is appropriate that this issue should be addressed through effective cooperation between stakeholders.
There is a tendency for the government, like most of society, to see trafficking as simply a problem of prostitution and to see prostitution as a moral problem caused by commercial sex workers, most of whom are women. Though it is true that most prostitutes are women, the prostitution industry would not exist without its customers, most of whom are men. Furthermore, many commercial sex workers are victims of human trafficking, forced to work as prostitutes against their will. Thus a moral approach to the problem of trafficking, blaming only women sex workers, will clearly not be effective. Instead trafficking must be addressed by an approach that also considers social and political aspects.
Government Responsibility
A legal aparatus to protect women from trafficking and prosecute offenders exists, but it has yet to be implemented or upheld effectively. The state and elites seem more concerned about cashing in on the economic benefits of migrant workers, most of whom are women. Indonesian Embassies in foreign countries are not serious about taking care of migrant workers. The Overseas Relations Act, no37/1999, designed to deal with problems experience by migrant workers whilst working abroad, has not been properly or responsibly implemented and most cases of trafficking or abuse of migrant workers are never prosecuted or resolved.
More importantly, there does not seem to be a genuine desire on the part of the government to eliminate the trafficking of women. From a religious point of view, the moral imperative to eliminate the crime of trafficking, particularly related to sexual trafficking, is clear. In al-Qur’an, Allah SWT decrees: “Lâ takrahû fatayâtikum 'ala al-bighâli in aradna tahashunâ”: “But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity” (QS 24:33)
It is the job of the government to create conditions, systems and laws that will eliminate this crime. As part of the community and citizens of the nation, women have the right to legal protection, to be free from physical and psychological exploitation. As the creations of Allah SWT, women have the right to be treated equally with other human beings. Mohammad SAW said: “Remember, be kind towards women because they often become the targets of abuse from you even though none of you have the right to treat them except with kindness." (HR. al-Turmudzi).
* Names have been changed to protect identity.
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