A defender of victimized workers

A defender of victimized workers

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang, Banten

Adj. Comr. Sri Suari is known among her fellow police officers as
a friendly but tough leader.

Her name comes first on the list of police officers manning
the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport police station -- not
because she is a woman officer but because she is the boss.

Being placed in charge of security at the international
airport indicates the trust that the Jakarta Police Headquarters
has in the 40-year-old officer.

Suari, who has been at the airport police station since 2000,
has one very special focus in her job: providing maximum
protection for Indonesian workers arriving from overseas.

Soekarno-Hatta's Terminal III is a notorious point of
disembarkation for homecoming workers, who often are treated as
milch cows. The corrupt and greedy individuals preying on the
workers include government officials, police officers, bank
employees, non-governmental organization activists, bogus
journalists and the bus drivers that take the workers from the
airport to their villages.

Since being assigned to the airport, Suari has uncovered 35
cases of extortion targeting overseas workers from the moment
they left the aircraft to the minute they set foot in their home
villages.

The crimes range from airport bus crews demanding "cigarette
money" and businesspeople forcing workers to change their money,
to strangers forcing them to buy electronic goods at inflated
prices and outright robbery.

"About half of the cases went to court and the rest were
settled amicably," she said. "Some cases are better settled out
of court to avoid the complicated legal procedures and time-
consuming processes."

Suari said the extortion of overseas workers had become a form
of organized crime, involving officials and individuals with no
legal authority.

Suari has written a guidebook that provides detailed
information to returning migrant workers about how to avoid being
victimized.

She wrote the book after much research on the different forms
of extortion and difficulties faced by the workers.

She posed as a returning worker, wearing Muslim clothes like
most of the workers. She spent several days and nights in
Terminal III, where arriving workers have their documents
processed.

"One day, a suspicious cleaning service worker chased me and
kicked me because I always covered my face and turned my back
when he asked me why I was still there," she said.

On another occasion, she posed as one of seven workers bound
for their home villages in Cianjur and Sukabumi, West Java. She
stayed at one of the workers' home.

"I wanted to learn what happened to workers during their trip
from the airport to their village, and see the real condition of
the workers' families.

"I got swollen feet from walking for hours from the nearest
town to the workers' village. There was no transportation to the
village," she said.

Suari successfully employed this disguise tactic last year
when she bust a drug trafficking ring. She posed as a courier
delivering a package to guests at a hotel on Jl. Rasuna Said in
South Jakarta. She arrested a Malaysian and two Indonesians with
4.5 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in their possession.

Although she is always focused on other crimes that occur in
her jurisdiction, for Suari protecting overseas workers from
extortion is a top priority.

"Arriving workers are easy extortion targets because they
carry large sums of foreign currencies," she said.

One thing she has done to help workers is to assign women
police officers to the airport to hand out police telephone
numbers to the workers, so they can contact the police in case of
emergency.

Last September, she required all returning workers to deposit
their money at Bank BNI before leaving the airport, and
withdrawing it from a branch office once they got home.

Workers who are unwilling to do this must sign a statement
confirming that they understand the possible security risks.

She cannot say just how effective these measures have been, in
large part because the police have only been able to catch the
small fries, while the big fish behind the crimes remain
untouched.

"These migrant workers have contributed trillions of rupiah to
the state coffers. The tragedy is that the state fails to protect
them.

"I am afraid that they will file a class action suit against
the state someday, when they realize that their basic rights are
not respected," she said.

Suari was born in 1963 and grew up in the small town of Bima
on Sumbawa island in West Nusa Tenggara. She was raised by her
mother Maria Sunarty after her father died when she was nine
months old.

After graduating from high school in 1982, she joined the
police force. In 1983 she was assigned as a shooting instructor,
a position she held until being sent to the officer training
course in 1992.

She was sent to the Police Academy in 1994, graduating in 1997
with honors. She continued her studies at the Police Science
Institute, graduating in 1999 again with honors.

While serving as the airport police chief, Suari also pursued
her master's degree in Police Sciences at the University of
Indonesia, completing the degree in August 2002.

She married Sr. Comr. Sri Wahyudi in 1986 and the couple have
a teenage daughter and a son. Her husband is posted at the
National Narcotics Body.

Suari continues to hope that some day the decision makers in
the central government will begin to pay attention to the plight
of the migrant workers, and start providing them the legal
protection they deserve.

"I sincerely hope that the decision makers will issue policies
that allow the workers to obtain more humane treatment, so that
they can enjoy the fruits of their toil," she said.