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)