Trafficking in children and women has emerged as
a major issue of global concern in recent years, particularly in
Asia. Trafficking of human beings for whatever reasons is a gross
violation of Human Rights. Indonesia has been identified as one
of the countries where this violation takes place.
In March 2000, the National Parliament of Indonesia
decided to ratify ILO Convention 182 on the Worst forms of child
labour by law (no.1/2000). This Convention acknowledges that the
sale and trafficking of children is a form of slavery or practice
similar to slavery and therefore one of the worst forms of child
labour.
This Convention stresses the urgency of achieving
prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
Once a government has ratified ILO Convention 182, they should apply
it in law and practice by introducing action programmes to remove
and prevent the worst forms of child labour; to provide direct assistance
for rehabilitation of children and their social integration; to
ensure access to free education; to identify children at special
risk and to take account of girls and their special situation.
Trafficking under this Convention is understood
as an act, which includes a component of recruitment and/or transportation
of a person most often for exploitative labour by means of violence,
threat, deception or debt bondage.
The ILO, within its International Programme for
the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), has working on the issue
of trafficking for several years. Programmes on combating child
trafficking are now being run in the Mekong Delta (Thailand, Cambodia,
Lao, Vietnam, Yunnan Province of China), South Asia (Nepal, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka), South America (Brazil and Paraguay) and Central and
Western Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Gabon,
Ghana, Malai, Nigeria and Togo). Another programme is going to start
for Philippines and Indonesia.
A study recently counducted by ILO-IPEC in collaboration
with University of Indonesia, Social Welfare Department provides
information collected which confirms the assumption that trafficking
indeed is a problem in Indonesia. The information indicates that
children are increasingly being recruited and sold within and across
national borders by organized networks. The child's vulnerability
to exploitation is even greater when they arrive in another country,
where they find themselves at the mercy of the employer and authorities,
often with ties to their families severed.
There may be many different forms of trafficking,
each having its own patterns across different regions in the country.
In the present report, however, description and analysis will be
performed on those types, which may fall under the mandate of ILO/IPEC,
i.e., incidence of trafficking, which contains an element of labour
exploitation, including sexual exploitation.
