Child trafficking rampant: Minister
JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of the Empowerment of Women Khofifah Indar Parawansa registered alarm on Tuesday at the high level of child trafficking, much of which is geared toward the burgeoning sex industry.
Implying a connection between the sex industry and child trafficking, she cited a Malaysian government statement which claimed that two-thirds of approximately 6,800 sex workers in the neighboring country were Indonesian.
According to Khofifah, authorities here have gathered information on child trafficking going on in 40 cities across the country.
"I have obtained complete data on child trafficking from police detectives. They contain the places, the names of the dealers, even their cellular phone numbers," she remarked.
She insisted that whatever action was taken should be part of a coordinated national effort, as the problem was a cross-border one.
She claimed that since the trafficking was often hidden under the guise of transporting migrant workers, there should be strong administrative control of labor exporters at the Indonesia Manpower Service Association (Apjati) and the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration.
"There should also be control by the directorate-general of immigration, so in issuing passports the migrant workers are really checked," she told journalists after a media briefing on a three-day national meeting on the action plan to eradicate female abuse.
Child trafficking, mostly of teenage girls, has become an important issue under the banner of abuse towards women and children, which the government is now combating.
The national action plan is aimed at establishing a zero tolerance policy for violations against women, whether at home, in the workplace or in the community.
The action plan commenced in January 1999.
Rapes
In line with the plan, the government, the police, and non- governmental organizations have been for the past six months working on identifying abuse and how to implement the plan.
Hambali, an activist, revealed that the action plan still needed to be publicized and given strong legal enforceability if any significant reduction in the number of crimes, especially rape, were to be seen.
Khofifah said the revised draft of the criminal code increased the punishment for rapists from seven months to a minimum two- year jail sentence.
"Rape has also become an issue for children. In 1999, the youngest rape victim was the age of six, last year it was five, and this year, there was a case of a 14-month toddler being raped by her stepfather," she added.
Khofifah said that there was hope for eradicating the abuse of women, because the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the police had opened a special division and centers to handle such cases. (bby)