Agency crackdown on airport extortion futile, say activists

Agency crackdown on airport extortion futile, say activists

JAKARTA (JP): Labor activists have expressed skepticism about
the joint team set up by the government to halt the extortion of
homecoming Indonesian migrant workers at Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport.

Yunus Yamani, an observer of labor affairs, said the newly-
established joint team would doubtless be ineffective as the
rampant extortion was being practiced by personnel from the
agencies setting up the team.

"I cannot understand why Jacob Nua Wea, the manpower and
transmigration minister, has assigned those who are behind the
labor extortion the task of halting the practice. The minister's
decision is inexplicable and the extortion will go on," he told
The Jakarta Post by telephone.

The minister installed on Thursday an eight-member joint team
to stop the extortion of Indonesian workers returning home
through the airport's Terminal III. The team comprises officials
from the Immigration Office, National Police, the airport
authority, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of
Manpower and Transmigration.

Yunus, a former member of a now defunct agency for monitoring
the flow of migrant workers at the airport, said the principal
problem was not the question of monitoring but rather law
enforcement.

"The main problem is that the relevant agencies at the airport
abuse their power by imposing illegal fees on workers, especially
female ones," he said.

Yunus claimed, for example, that workers were obliged to pay
Rp 50,000 to have their passports checked, porters asked for Rp
2,000 for each piece of a worker's labeled baggage, and, worse,
the returning migrant workers were forced to convert their
foreign currency at extortionately low rates on their way to
their home villages, mostly in West and Central Java.

He further expressed his disappointment with the failure to
take tough measures against all those involved in extorting
workers.

"For example, we exposed 23 extortion cases last year but no
action has been taken against those who were involved," he said.

Halomoan Hutapea, a labor observer, concurred and said that
labor extortion would continue unless the legal authorities
properly enforced the law at the airport.

He said that besides strict law enforcement at the airport,
the government should entrust the labor exporters, rather than
transportation companies, to take charge of workers who were
going back to their home villages.

"Labor exporters should be given responsibility for handling
the workers at the airport, including their transportation to
their home villages, because they themselves sent the workers
overseas," he said.

Hutapea said he was deeply concerned about the inhumane
treatment of Indonesian workers, who were helping to solve the
unemployment problem at home and also contributing to the
country's foreign exchange earnings.

"The workers should be welcomed home as heroes as their
Philippine colleagues are treated upon arrival in their home
country," he said. (rms)