Female artist, NGO help fight against human trafficking
Female artist, NGO help fight against human trafficking
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta
The fourth grade students looked very happy as renowned TV
presenter Dewi Hughes "taught" in front of their class.
"So, what do you think is the moral of the story, dear
students?" she asked tenderly while waving a piece of purple
paper with a comic strip on it.
Shyly, one by one, the students answered as the celebrity
walked around the class, moving from one table to another, asking
them other questions about the comic story they had just learned
together.
"Now that you have studied the story that says that children
have to stay at school to finish their study, what would you say
if someone asks you to go to Jakarta now to work?" Hughes asked
again.
This time, the students of the remote SDN Girisekar elementary
school in Panggang sub-district, Gunungkidul regency, cried out
"No!" And when Hughes asked why, in unison they yelled out that
they were not yet old enough to go to work.
Popular TV celebrity Dewi Hughes was performing her duty as
the national ambassador for the eradication of trafficking in
women and children.
"Human trafficking, especially that of women and children, is
a transnational, well-organized crime. Unless each of us is
actively involved in fighting against it, it will be very
difficult to conquer," Hughes said on the sidelines of the
campaign recently held in Gunungkidul regency. The regency was
picked to kick off the campaign as many people here sought work
outside of the regency, notably Jakarta.
Hughes, who was appointed an anti-trafficking campaign
ambassador by the Indonesian State Ministry of Woman's
Empowerment in June 2003, was indeed not alone in the campaign
activity last week.
With her were representatives from the American Center for
International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), a Washington DC-based
non-governmental organization, International Relief and
Development (IRD) that is also based in Washington DC, and snack
producer PT Tiga Pilar Sejahtera of Sukoharjo, Central Java.
The activity, which was held at SDN Girisekar and SDN Panggang
II, included distributing supplementary food and comic strips
carrying moral messages about the importance of finishing school
and working only when they were old enough and skilled enough to
do so. Three different comic stories were distributed.
ACILS plans to distribute the comic strips to over 30,000
elementary school students in Gunungkidul (Yogyakarta) and
Wonogiri (Central Java), places that have long been known as
major migrant workers source areas and where the elementary
school dropout level is also high.
There have been reports that many elementary school dropouts
are forced to work locally, or are sent to big cities to work to
help support their families.
What is of concern is that traffickers often deceive these
migrant workers; that instead of getting the jobs they are
promised, they are forced to work in slave-like conditions or
even entrapped into prostitution.
Besides distributing comic strips to elementary school
students, ACILS also distributes some 3.8 million printed
messages about the danger of trafficking.
The messages, which are inserted inside packets of noodles
sold in traditional markets throughout Java, are mainly targeted
at adults.
The messages give advice on how to securely migrate for work,
include prohibiting children under 18 years of age to migrate for
work, not allowing false information to be put into their
passports, and studying work contracts carefully before signing.
"We have been working with the issue here in Indonesia since
2001. We cooperate with both government institutions and the
NGOs," ACILS' Program Specialist Jamie Davis told reporters on
the sidelines of the campaign in Gunungkidul.