TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS SOLICITATION FOR G/TIP FY 2007 ESF

UNCLAS JAKARTA 001129

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

FOR EAP/RSA, G/TIP, EAP/MTS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL ELAB KWMN SMIG ID
SUBJECT: TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS SOLICITATION FOR G/TIP FY 2007 ESF
AND INCLE FUNDS: INDONESIAN PROPOSALS

REFERENCE: State 28292


1. U.S. Mission Jakarta submits to G/TIP the following five
Indonesian Anti-Trafficking in Persons project proposals for
consideration of funding from FY 2007 INCLE and ESF appropriation.
Also listed are two regional proposals. These are listed in the rank
order recommended by a Mission panel composed of State and USAID
officers that met on April 20 to consider seven Indonesian proposals
and two regional proposals, as follows:

Indonesian Projects:


2. First:
International Organization for Migration
Budget: $300,876
Title: Strengthening the Capacity of Criminal Justice Agencies to
Combat Human Trafficking as Well as to Protect Victims of
Trafficking in Indonesia
Duration: One year
Abstract:
Within the framework of this project, IOM proposes to work in
partnership with Government of Indonesia (GOI) to strengthen local
capacity to combat human trafficking through effective criminal
justice responses. Particularly, IOM will provide technical
assistance and targeted trainings to the police, prosecutors,
immigration officials, labor inspectors and judges in an effort to
increase the numbers of convictions of human traffickers, while at
the same time provide better protection to victims. Importantly, IOM
will link the criminal justice agencies (CJA) with the victim
assistance agencies. IOM is well suited to empower the GOI in this
endeavor given its extensive experience the last three years working
with GOI on comprehensive victim assistance as well as law
enforcement programs. The project is designed to maximize Government
ownership, and sustainability at all levels. Although a new project
with GTIP, the project will build upon the successful results of
IOM's recent law enforcement program to combat human trafficking,
funded by NZAID. The NZAID funded law enforcement project began in
March 2004 and ended in March 2007. The proposed project will also
complement IOM Indonesia's current Return, Recovery and
Reintegration Programs in Indonesia (funded by both the US PRM under
the Presidential Initiative and the US DOL). Currently, additional
pledged funds from PRM will run through approximately December 2007
and the USDOL program (which targets only school age children) will
run through March 2009.


3. Second:
Department of Justice, ICITAP Indonesia
Budget: $400,000
Title: Technical Assistance, Training and Limited Equipment to the
Indonesian National Police
Duration: One year
Abstract:
The purpose of this proposal is to provide continued ICITAP
technical assistance, training, and limited equipment to the
Indonesian National Police (INP) Assistance Program to assist the
Government of Indonesia (GOI) to increase and continue the
development of sustainable efforts initiated in the ICITAP "Point of
Origin Strategy. This proposal capitalizes on the integrated
multi-disciplinary anti-trafficking strategy for identification,
investigation, information sharing and prosecution of transnational
trafficking organizations and the protection and safety of
trafficking victims that began in late 2006. ICITAP worked directly
and collaboratively with local IOM, NGO's, and USAID to integrate
and train law enforcement and non-governmental personnel together in
geographic areas where the most vulnerable of populations reside,
specifically in North Sumatra and East Java. Micro-training
sessions have resulted in the training of 320 police officers and 75
NGO staff, representing 58 NGO organizations in less than one year.
The result has been an increase of arrests, NGO's now feel more
comfortable to contact police regarding victims and traffickers and
have done so on a regular basis since the strategy was initiated.
As important is the police now understand the role and benefit of
NGO's and IOM. Further, this strategy was expanded to border areas
of Malaysia where ICITAP received funding to conduct an
Indonesia-Malaysia Bi-Lateral TIP Project developing operational
relationships with Malaysian law enforcement counterparts and also
non-governmental organizations and stakeholders at Points of Transit
along the porous borders and waterways of common trafficking routes.
This project proposal would expand the strategy to include
prosecutors being integrated into the process working directly with
IOM that is currently involved in the training and education of the
procuracy and judiciary. With a new trafficking law recently passed,
increased collaboration with IOM and other NGO's, demand for
assistance, and a new and consistent willingness by the police to
work with other non-law enforcement components, it is important to
maintain the momentum generated in the last year. Outcomes would
include a and augmented, synthesized, multi-disciplinary response to
trafficking issues in the previously identified areas of North
Sumatra and East Java; areas plagued by trafficking organizations
that have preyed upon the vulnerable populations of young women for
sexual exploitation. Stakeholders, including police, prosecutors,

IOM, and NGO's would be again be integrated into training modules to
develop requisite skills, competencies, and working relationships to
produce a seamless process of prevention, rescue, investigation, and
arrest of traffickers and disruption of trafficking organizations in
Indonesia. This would be supplemented by already existing ICITAP
initiatives with the Marine Police Special Boat Units interdiction
capacity along trafficking routes, the ICITAP Cyber Crimes
Investigative Unit and Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS)
that operationally address transnational criminal activities.


4. Third:
Save the Children
Budget: $388,690
Title: Combating Exploitation of Child Domestic Workers
Duration: Two years
Abstract:
The trafficking of Indonesian children for domestic labor within and
outside of Indonesia is a serious and often overlooked human rights
concern. Official figures estimate that 25-50 percent of Indonesia's
1,350,000 domestic workers are under the age of 18, with many under
the minimum working age of 15. Children who are trafficked for
domestic work face long working hours with no opportunity for
education, exposure to physical, emotional and sexual violence,
frequently little to no pay, and a variety of occupational hazards.
In addition, they often have little or no freedom of movement.
These same children often aspire toward migrant domestic work as a
way to increase their earnings. Without basic education, they
become a reliable source for traffickers and brokers who seek to
lure them with the promise of a more prosperous life. Save the
Children Federation, Inc (SC) is pleased to submit this proposal for
$388,690 over two years to reduce the number of Indonesian children
trafficked for domestic labor within and outside of Indonesia. SC
and its Indonesian partners, JALA, Laha, Children's Crisis Center
and Women's Crisis Center will work in Bandung, Surabaya, and
Jogjakarta to withdraw and provide quality reintegration services to
children trafficked into domestic work; improve the quality of
reintegration services and referral networks; increase community
awareness of domestic servitude and trafficking for domestic work,
increase the knowledge and improve behaviors of employers toward
child domestic workers; and increase the Government of Indonesia's
(GOI) capacity to reintegrate child survivors of trafficking. Over
the past six years, SC's strong network of experienced staff and
local and international partners have made groundbreaking progress
in Indonesia's fight to eliminate trafficking in persons and in the
meanwhile, earning SC global recognition as a leader in
anti-trafficking programming for children.


5. Fourth:
American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS)
International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)
Budget: $330,000
Title: Sustaining the Efforts of Government and Civil Society in
Eastern Indonesia to Combat Human Trafficking
Duration: One year
Abstract: Recent field research documents a growing industry of
trafficking in women and girls for commercial sexual exploitation in
the provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya (WIJ). Thousands of
women, girls, and boys are vulnerable to trafficking in the
economically disadvantaged communities of East Nusa Tenggara (ENT)
province, where international migration for work is an increasingly
attractive option for economic survival. In trafficking to Papua for
commercial sexual exploitation, the province of North Maluku plays
an important role as a holding and redistribution center for
trafficked women and girls. Under a USAID-supported Anti-Trafficking
in Persons project commissioned in March 2007, the Solidarity
Center/ICMC implements actions in five western Indonesian provinces
in order to optimize the impact of funds available. In that project
grant, no assistance for counter trafficking programming is provided
for Indonesia's eastern provinces. In Solidarity Center/ICMC's five
previous US Government-funded projects, little attention was paid to
the eastern provinces other than East Java, West Nusa Tenggara
(WNT),and North Sulawesi. However, east Indonesian provinces are
known to be major sources (particularly North Sulawesi, East Java,
East Java, and ENT) and destinations (particularly Papua and WIJ) of
domestic and international trafficking for the purpose of
prostitution, domestic work, and slave-like labor in Malaysia's
plantations and factories. Based on an application submitted to
G-TIP through the US Embassy in Jakarta in February 2006, Solidarity
Center/ICMC has been notified of pending approval of $400,000 in
funding for a one-year project to combat trafficking in eastern
Indonesia. However, given the intensity of the problem, a longer
intervention is critically needed in order to be effective. This
application intends to extend support to the project for another
year.


6. Fifth:
The Asia Foundation
Budget: $300,330
Title: Linking Law Enforcement with Local Community Groups to Stop
Trafficking in Indonesia
Duration: Two years

Abstract: The Asia Foundation requests a grant of $300,340 for a
two-year program to replicate a proven model that links law
enforcement with community groups to stop trafficking, protect
victims, and prosecute traffickers in major trafficking centers in
East Java. In 2006, the U.S. Department of State rated Indonesia a
Tier 2 Watch country because of its lack of persistent efforts to
combat trafficking in persons (TIP). Indeed, both internal and
international trafficking of Indonesians remains a serious problem.
Women and children are especially vulnerable to being trafficked
into the sex trade and domestic servitude. However, some recent
steps by the Government of Indonesia, including passing a
comprehensive anti-TIP law, indicate that the problem has become a
higher priority. The Asia Foundation has worked with local partners
in Surabaya in East Java, a trafficking hot-spot, to establish an
anti-trafficking task force comprised of community and religious
leaders, police, prosecutors, judges, and civil society
organizations that has been remarkably successful in combating
trafficking in the surrounding area. The task force model creates
synergy among different actors working to combat trafficking,
drawing on their individual resources and strengths to stimulate
community-wide action to stop trafficking. The Foundation will
utilize its own expert staffs, who provided technical assistance to
local organizations to form the Surabaya task force, and carefully
selected local partners, to identify and engage local community
stakeholders from both civil society and law enforcement to
establish four new anti-TIP task forces. The Foundation will use
strategies and training materials from its successful community
policing program in Indonesia to build partnerships between
communities and law enforcement in each target location that will
form the basis of the new anti-TIP task forces in each area.
The proposed program will increase the capacity of the Surabaya task
force to enable it to provide technical assistance and training in
four other major trafficking areas of East Java- Banyuwangi, Jember,
Blitar and Ponorogo - to replicate the task force. At the end of
the two-year program, there will be a network of community-based
task forces across East Java that are mobilizing and coordinating
community resources, leaders, law enforcement, and ordinary citizens
to stop trafficking in their respective areas.

Regional Projects:


7. First:
International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)
Budget: $204,809
Title: Protection of and Assistance to Indonesian Women and Girls
Trafficked to Sabah in Eastern Malaysia for Commercial Sexual
Exploitation
Duration: One year
Abstract: The trafficking of Indonesians has been profiled for
several years, yet annually tens of thousands of people continue to
be trafficked, both domestically and internationally. The majority
of international trafficking takes place to Malaysia, particularly
through Nunukan, Entikong and Tanjung Pinang to the Malaysian states
of Sabah, Sarawak and Jahor respectively, and especially into
construction, plantation and domestic work as well as the hotel and
entertainment industry, where many migrant women and girls are
forced into prostitution. The proposed program is to be implemented
over a year by the International Catholic Migration Commission
(ICMC),in partnership with Human Development Committee (HDC),
Diocese of Kota Kinabalu, a leading NGO advocating for the rights of
and providing services to migrants. The primary objective of the
project is the development of a replicable model of bilateral
cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia at local level; and
particularly between the local governments of Nunukan (E.
Kalimantan, Indonesia) and Tawau (Sabah, Malaysia) which see about
one-thirds of all Indonesian migrants to Malaysia passing through
every year, and a proportional number of trafficking victims. The
program will be implemented at district and municipality levels in
four locations: in Nunukan in East Kalimantan and in Tawau, Sandakan
and Kota Kinabalu, in Sabah. Nunukan and Tawau are the primary exit
and entry points along the so-called eastern trafficking corridor to
Malaysia and therefore represent a critical juncture at which
trafficking can be addressed. The Indonesian Ministry of Women's
Empowerment (KPP) has specifically requested assistance in such
border areas. Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu, in addition to Tawau
itself, represent primary destinations for Indonesian women and
girls trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation in Sabah.


8. Second:
International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)
Budget: $449,914
Title: Increasing the Access to Shelters and Other Essential
Migrant Services for Indonesian Women Migrant Workers in Taiwan Who
Are Exploited and/or Held in Involuntary Servitude
Duration: One year
Abstract:
In the recent years, Taiwan has emerged as the second most preferred
East Asian destination for Indonesian migrant workers after
Malaysia. The two major reasons for this are, the systematic
promotion of Indonesians women as caregivers by placement brokers in
Taiwan, and the lure of a salary equivalent to US$ 495 per month -

high by the standards of any other country of destination. For
Indonesian migrant workers to Taiwan the costs incurred in migrating
are considerable: firstly, because of high salaries in Taiwan,
recruiters typically "sell the job" requiring a considerable down
payments from potential migrants even before they leave Indonesia,
which in itself may force the migrant into debt; and secondly
because considerable recruitment, holding center and transport
costs, initially borne by recruiters, are most often passed down
contractually as debts to the brokers and then employers in Taiwan
who recoup the costs through usurious salary deductions, effectively
placing the migrants in situations in which debt is used as an
instrument of bondage, exposing migrants to exploitation and abuse.
There is little to distinguish trafficked persons from most migrant
workers held in debt bondage; both have experienced deceit in their
recruitment, the withholding of documents while in debt, and varying
levels of confinement. Many Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan
realize that they are in servitude, and the promised salaries are
illusory because of various deductions enforced by agents. They also
find that Taiwanese labor laws do not offer them many options to
leave one employer and seek another. They must either endure, or
"run away" to the irregular employment market, opening themselves to
risks of further exploitation or arrest, detention, and deportation.
In similar situations, migrant workers from other south-east Asian
countries - especially Filipinos - get crucial support such as
temporary shelter, legal assistance, counseling etc. from church-run
migrant worker service centers, which also help a migrant worker
with problem to find another job. Indonesian migrant workers
however, rarely access these services - firstly because they are
less aware of their existence, and secondly, for fear of being
chastised by their Muslim religious leaders for associating with
other religions. On the other hand, the clergy of the five mosques
in Taiwan, so far, have shown little interest in supporting migrant
workers with problems. In fact, some of the Chinese Muslim clergy
openly oppose unaccompanied migration by Muslim women - Indonesian
or otherwise. Debt-bondage of migrant workers to Taiwan requires a
comprehensive response - the foremost being the enactment of a
suitable anti-trafficking legislation. Pending that, however,
Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan, almost 90% women, need better
information about institutions that could help them to get out of
involuntary servitude and abusive situations. They also need
approval by their religious leaders to approach service
organizations managed by persons with different faiths or to receive
support from organizations of their own faith. The proposed project
is expected to achieve this result through sensitization of Muslim
religious leaders, Indonesian migrant workers' associations; and by
bolstering the capacity of service providers, sometimes church
based, to extend shelter to migrant workers seeking change of
employer, and to repatriate survivors who want to return to
Indonesia but are stranded as they cannot pay their passage. At the
same time, it will give ICMC a base in Taiwan from where to advocate
for a comprehensive new AT law.