Govt team to fight trafficking of women
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.