INDONESIA: Trafficking fuels commercial sex work
Photo: David Swanson/IRIN  | | A Genta staff member counsels 19-year-old Isah. Thousands of women fall victim to traffickers each year |
SURABAYA,
3 June 2009 (IRIN) - Among the alleyways of Dolly, in Indonesia's
second-largest city, it is not difficult to find thousands of young
women lured by the prospects of a better life working as commercial sex
workers (CSWs).
"I never chose to be a prostitute. It just
happened," Isah, 19, told IRIN, describing her tenure in one of
Southeast Asia's largest commercial sex venues.
Married and divorced by 17, Isah was easy prey for traffickers, who promised her a well-paid job in the city.
"After my divorce, there was no way I could return to my family. I had
to escape," she said, only to find herself servicing up to eight men a
night for about US$30 per day.
Such stories are common in East Java, Indonesia's most populous
province, particularly in rural areas, with thousands of women being
trafficked both internally and abroad for prostitution.
In Dolly alone, more than 2,500 women now work as CSWs; a large number of them trafficked.
While no official statistics are available, data suggest that
80,000-100,000 women and children are victims of sexual exploitation or
have been trafficked for such purposes each year, many to Malaysia and
the Middle East, while others are sent to the capital Jakarta or
Kalimantan (Borneo), an island rich in timber, coffee and rubber
plantations where large numbers of men live alone.
An estimated 30 percent of all female sex workers are younger than 18, some as young as 10.
Photo: David Swanson/IRIN  |
| Lured
by prospects of a well-paying job, many rural women move to Jakarta
only to find themselves working as commercial sex workers |
Escape routes
Although some trafficking victims - both inside and outside Indonesia - manage to escape, their numbers remain few.
In Malaysia alone, some 900 women seek assistance annually; a figure widely believed to be just 10 percent of the total.
"These figures are really just the tip of the iceberg," Jasmina Byrne,
the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) chief of child protection programmes in
Jakarta, said.
Trafficking is the result of many interrelated factors, say
specialists, including a lack of protection mechanisms, which allows
unscrupulous agents to work more freely.
Job opportunities are slim in the world's largest archipelago, and
migration offers hope for a better future - particularly in rural areas
where a large number of people live on or below the poverty line.
According to the World Bank, close to 20 percent of the population -
the fourth-largest in the world - live below the national poverty line.
"Poverty is the driving factor," Diyan Wahyuningsih, coordinator of
Genta, a local NGO, in Surabaya, which also runs one of two shelters in
the city for trafficking victims, said.
Conditions are particularly bad for young people, but even more so for
girls, with fewer opportunities for education and job opportunities.
Many see the bright lights of the cities as an escape, but without the
necessary knowledge and skills to survive many are exploited.
Photo: David Swanson/IRIN |
| Thousands
of women work abroad as domestic helpers. About 80 percent of all
Indonesian migrant workers are women, mostly domestic workers |
Legislation
Although the government enacted legislation against human trafficking in 2007, full implementation will take time.
Poor law enforcement and corruption lead to few cases being adequately
investigated, with offenders regularly going unpunished.
"Levels of abuse cases, including prostitution, due to trafficking are
increasing," said Waloejo Noegroho, head of the Pusat Pelayanan Terpadu
in Surabaya, a government referral office set up to assist children and
women survivors of violence, abuse and trafficking, one of 28 such
centres in East Java.
"Many of these people are poor and uneducated. They are unaware of
their rights and easily tricked," said Yanti Indarsyah, a counsellor at
the centre. "Many victims are badly affected and may need long-term
therapy".
Additional challenges
According to UNICEF, 60 percent of Indonesian children under-five do
not have birth certificates. "If that first protection right - your
birth certificate - is not in place, it is very easy to manipulate
somebody's identity. You can then present someone as being older than
they really are," Byrne said.
"This is why you have young girls being trafficked. These girls should
not even be allowed to migrate abroad because of their age," she said.
UNICEF believes protecting human rights depends on the ability to make
the identification and age of a person foolproof, thus reducing the
risk of traffickers taking advantage.
Other issues include the continued practice of debt bondage in some
places, as well as early marriage and early divorce - all having a
contributory effect, as in the case of Isah.
According to UNICEF, about 12 percent of women in Indonesia are married at or before the age of 15.
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