Govt team to fight trafficking of women

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government decided on Wednesday to establish an interdepartmental team to launch various campaigns aimed at curbing rampant human trafficking, Coordinating Minister for Peoples' Welfare Jusuf Kalla said.

Speaking after a coordination meeting at his office, Kalla said that the decision was made in response to the United Nations' evaluation, which categorized Indonesia as one of the worst countries in handling human trafficking.

"Indonesia, according to the UN, has been included in the third grade with its poor commitment and regulations on the issue. We've been named a supplier and transitory country for human trafficking," he said.

Kalla said that the interdepartmental team, to be led by the office of the State Ministry of Women's Empowerment, would be assigned to lower the evaluation to the second grade within three years.

"We will tighten surveillance and security, especially along borders, and launch campaigns to address the causes for human trafficking, which frequently ends with women and children forced to become sex workers or illegal workers overseas," Kalla remarked.

State Minister for Women's Empowerment Sri Redjeki Soemaryoto explained that the efforts would include signing international conventions against women and drug trafficking and a revision of the laws and regulations concerning the issue.

"All ministers agreed that we should also launch campaigns to enhance family sustainability and their social and economic welfare, and also to campaign against domestic violence," she added.

Kalla argued that, although there has yet to be any accurate data, the thousands of women and children sent to Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, were mostly young widows aged about 16 years old.

"The government sets 16 as the proper age for women to marry, but most of the victims were married below that age. Poverty or a lack of skills have forced them to take offers for overseas employment," he said.

The office of the State Ministry of Women's Empowerment will also hold an exhibition, exclusively for women, on women's pornography on Dec. 22 to make public the worst form of exploitation.