ID raids stun female workers
ID raids stun female workers
Zakki Hakim and Fifi Yulianti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
City officials, accompanied by police and security personnel,
Thursday barged into homes in a densely populated Jakarta
residential neighborhood checking for residents' ID cards.
There were a group of workers, mostly young women, in one
house, which turned out to be a cottage industry making apparel,
and almost none of them were carrying proper Jakarta IDs. They
were taken to a nearby office and "tried" in a small, makeshift
ID court, complete with judges but no lawyers. Afterward their
fingerprints were taken by the city police.
The raid was not in a war zone like Aceh or Papua, but in West
Pademangan subdistrict in North Jakarta.
The city administration was conducting door-to-door ID raids
on Thursday in five areas across the city.
Such raids have been common the past few years in an effort to
curb the flow of migrants, especially poor, unskilled ones.
Activists have criticized the policy, saying that it was against
the Constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to
travel around the country and to seek a better living.
Bambang Haryadi, spokesman for the North Jakarta mayoralty,
told The Jakarta Post that the operation was carried out to serve
as means to control the registration of citizens, as well as a
bit of "shock therapy" for illegal residents in Jakarta, which he
said was working well as a means to keep migrants out.
A garment worker, a woman in her early 20s, said that in one
raid one of the officers was overly "affectionate", as he stoked
her hands and shoulders while asking questions regarding her ID
problem.
As the Post observed, the officials were seen flirting with
the young women and at times unnecessarily touching them.
As for the employers, they complained that their neighborhood
chiefs had been reluctant to assist them in making temporary IDs
for their workers.
"My neighborhood chief said that he would take responsibility
for the absence of proper IDs," one employer said.
One neighborhood chief said that the workers mostly stayed in
his neighborhood for only two months, therefore he thought making
temporary IDs would be unnecessary.
The chiefs were, however, dumbfounded when the city officials
explained that people who did not register themselves at the city
administration were violating Bylaw No. 1/1996 Article 3, on
population registration, and therefore could be punished with a
fine to a maximum Rp 5 million (approximately US$607), or a
three-month jail term.
However, in the makeshift trials, the violators, mostly
workers, were ordered to pay fines of between Rp 10,000 and Rp
60,000. The fines were mostly paid by the violators' employers.
One of the employers, Agek, 37, said that she felt relieved
because her workers did not have to pay up to Rp 5 million each.
"This kind of raid is only seasonal. The officials are only
looking for extra money," she said bitterly after paying a total
of a Rp 220,000 in fines for her six workers.
After the trial, officials took pictures and fingerprints of
the "violators" to be used for the police files.
Nevertheless, after complying with all the procedures, each of
them was issued a temporary ID.
Kartawijaya, head of the mayoralty's agency for population and
registration, said that Thursday's raid checked 865 residents and
pronounced found 107 violators in West Pademangan, where about
80,000 people reside, of whom about 18,000 are seasonal migrants.
The raids were also carried out in Sumur Batu, Central
Jakarta; Kramat Jati, East Jakarta; Tegal Alur, West Jakarta; and
Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta. A total of 2,542 residents
across the city were checked, and 539 of them were penalized.
The city administration and police have been conducting
population registration, which was earlier linked to the issue of
Jakarta's security in connection with the war in Aceh.