Anti-human trafficking law urgent, experts say

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia needs to carve out an anti-human trafficking bill, considering that it has no law against all forms of human trafficking, experts say.

The United Nations regards Indonesia as a supplier of victims and one of the worst countries in handling the heinous phenomena.

Lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said on Thursday that Indonesia should set penalties equivalent to those set for other grave crimes.

"The bill should be drafted out in clear detail, since trafficking could be done for sexual purposes, could involve rape or kidnapping, and could also cause death," Nursyahbani told The Jakarta Post.

She added that discussions over drafting the bill had earlier been debated by the government but nothing had come out of it.

Nursyahbani was responding to accusations made by the United States on Wednesday that 19 countries, including Indonesia, had made no real efforts to stop the trading of humans.

The accusations were made in the United States's second annual report on human trafficking, which was mandated by the Congress and carries the risk of sanctions being imposed on Indonesia.

Nursyahbani said aside from an the dismal existing laws in Indonesia that did nothing to stop trafficking of women and children into the sex or forced labor industries, human trafficking here received financial backing from police and border officers.

She pointed out that severe loopholes in Article 297 of the Indonesian Criminal Code were constantly being exploited by organized human traffickers and law enforcers like the local police, to facilitate their dehumanizing business.

The Article states that anybody found guilty of "trafficking women and underaged boys" could receive a maximum sentence of just six years in jail.

"There are no paragraphs to that article or any other article explaining whether there is additional punishment if the victim is found dead, severely tortured or sexually abused," Nursyahbani said.

"No explanation either on (what happens to) people who are not directly involved in the trafficking, but who financially support the traffickers."

Separately, criminologist Harkristuti Harkrisnowo said that being among the worst of the 19 countries should push Indonesia to provide a system to investigate, prosecute and adequately punish acts of trafficking.

According to the U.S. report, at least 700,000, and possibly as many as four million men, women and children worldwide over the past year, were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions.

The second annual report places Indonesia in Tier 3, its worst category, stating that it was a source country for trafficked persons, primarily young women and girls.

"Trafficking also occurs within Indonesia's borders. Victims are trafficked primarily for purposes of labor and sexual exploitation," the report states.

Harkristuti slammed the government for failing to ratify the 1949 United Nations convention on anti-trafficking of women, demanding that the government should speed up ratification of the convention.