Human trafficking on the rise in East Java

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post/Madura

Eyes glistening with tears, Lina (not her real name) slowly, painfully recalled for her visitor the horrors she had suffered in Batam, where the 13-year-old Madura native had been offered a job as a shopkeeper but instead was forced to work as a prostitute.

"I have no future. My friends and family won't have anything to do with me," said Lina, an elementary school dropout, in Pamekasan, Madura, East Java.

She said she arrived in Batam ready to earn money working as a shopkeeper, but was instead trapped in a nightmare world of forced sex. Lina said Nasiah, a manpower broker, threatened to kill her if she refused to work as a prostitute.

"I was told to provide good services for the guests of Mr. Mujiat, a pimp," she said.

Her mother left home when Lina was two, going to Malaysia to find work. Her mother eventually remarried in Malaysia and stopped sending money home to her family in Madura, forcing Lina to drop out of school and look for ways to help support her family. That is what led the girl to travel to Batam.

"I was always afraid when I worked in the club in Batam. Nasiah would yell at me for the smallest mistakes," she said.

Lina was not alone in Batam. She was with three other girls. Lina and one of the girls worked in one nightclub, while the other two worked in a separate club. After several weeks, Lina and another girl were able to escape and return home. The fate of the other two girls is unknown.

A senior officer with the East Java Police, Comr. Krisno Siregar, said his unit was investigating the case.

"There has been a report that the manpower broker who brought Lina to Batam is part of an organized crime," Krisno said recently.

There has been an increase in the number of reported cases of human trafficking in East Java. In 2003 and 2004 only two human trafficking cases were reported, while so far this year there have been six reported cases. Most of the cases follow a similar pattern. The traffickers entice the victims with offers of jobs in another city, but when they arrive they are forced to work as prostitutes.

Cicik Sri Rejeki, a member of the Child Protection Institute, said poverty was the driving force behind the rising number of human trafficking cases in the province.

According to data from the International Labor Organization released last year, of an estimated 28,558 sex workers in East Java, 8,162 are children, most between the ages of 13 and 18. The majority of these children, some 52.8 percent, say they are forced to work as prostitutes because of poverty.