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.