TRAFFICKING -- MULTILATERAL STRATEGY MEETING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 003238 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/RSP, EAP/MLS, G/TIP, DRL/PHD NSC FOR EPHU DOL FOR ILAB BSASSER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV SMIG PHUM EAID ID SUBJECT: TRAFFICKING -- MULTILATERAL STRATEGY MEETING UNITES DONORS, NGOS REF: JAKARTA 3146 JAKARTA 00003238 001.2 OF 002 ¶1. (U) SUMMARY: Mission--at its initiative--recently hosted a trafficking-focused meeting of multilateral donors and NGOs. The meeting--chaired by Dep Pol/C--addressed several recommendations made in the 2007 GAO evaluation of USG international human trafficking projects. Meeting participants arrived at a consensus on how donors and their partners can better share information, collaborate on projects and jointly lobby the GOI. Follow-up meetings have been scheduled on a monthly basis to address specific recommendations. We hope to leverage this new grouping into our effort to further improve Indonesia's Tier Two standing after it was removed from the Watchlist earlier this year. END SUMMARY. MISSION INITIATIVE ¶2. (U) Mission has moved forward on an initiative to improve anti-trafficking efforts in Indonesia. In response to the Government Accounting Offices's July 2007 recommendations for improved multilateral anti-trafficking collaboration on an international scale, Dep Pol/C (Labatt) organized an October 30 meeting of multilateral donors and international NGO partners to discuss a coordinated strategy. While several multilateral meetings have been held in the past in order to share information on child labor and anti-trafficking efforts, this was the first meeting to brainstorm overarching strategy and objectives in order to arrive at concrete means to better collaborate and share information. The meeting resulted in an initial list of strategic priorities which Dep Pol/C subsequently disseminated to participants as the groundwork for future discussions. Key participants in the meeting are mentioned below. KEY CONCERNS ¶3. (U) In a wide-ranging three-hour discussion among the more than 40 persons who attended the meeting, the group agreed on the following: a. Lack of education and poverty breeds trafficking. b. Debt bondage is a key element in facilitating trafficking. c. Overlapping national plans of action on trafficking, child protection and related plans are competing for scarce resources and are not being effectively integrated. d. The national Trafficking Plan of Action does not provide 
for good coordination among national agencies and with local governments; for example, budgeting and data sharing is fragmented. Strong political will be needed in implementing the plan. e. ASEAN potentially could be an effective forum to address regional trafficking issues. COOPERATION, ADVOCACY VITAL ¶4. (U) The group established the following strategic priorities: a. Cooperation: Increased information-sharing and project collaboration. b. Advocacy: A united multilateral front to lobby the GOI to increase its anti-trafficking budget, to take more responsibility for efforts now funded by international donors, to coordinate among government agencies and local levels of government, and to sign robust bilateral agreements to protect migrant workers. c. Training and awareness: Emphasize law enforcement training, raising skills of migrant workers, ridding of debt bondage, and implementing a sustainable national action plan. JAKARTA 00003238 002.2 OF 002 FOLLOW-UP ¶5. (U) Follow-up meetings of the group have been scheduled by UNICEF, Save the Children (U.S.),the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Solidarity Center over the next several months to address the above issues in more detail, including via: a. Coordination of trafficking data collection and reporting. b. A second strategy meeting including countries not currently contributing to Indonesian anti-trafficking efforts (such as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia) in order to demonstrate multilateral unity in addressing the issue. c. Coordination of efforts to lobby for effective implementation of the National Plan of Action. A UNITED FRONT ¶6. (U) The October 30 meeting was the first to invite sympathetic countries and groupings which so far have been only peripherally involved in anti-trafficking efforts and have never been included in multilateral discussions, including: Japan, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, the EU, Spain, and Germany. (Note: Australia, New Zealand and France also attended, but were already very active donor participants.) Nearly all these countries sent representatives to the meeting. Participants made solid contributions and appeared to gain a great deal from the discussion. For example, a Japanese diplomat said Japan is taking trafficking very seriously, and is assisting IOM in returning and rehabilitating victims. The EU is addressing the issue through poverty alleviation. The Spanish ambassador said Spain is funding labor projects through ASEAN. The French are working very closely with the USDOJ and others on law enforcement training (see reftel reviewing a recent anti-trafficking event which the U.S. and Indonesia hosted in Bali). ¶7. (U) Sally Neumann of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP)--who was on a visit to Indonesia--also participated in the meeting. She welcomed the initiative, stressing the importance of close multilateral cooperation. ¶8. (U) It was obvious from the exchange among the donors and NGOs that much more can be accomplished through closer collaboration. A multilateral effort to lobby the GOI will also be much more powerful and will take the USG out of the position of being the only strong voice calling for stronger political action. Future meetings might also include representatives from key Indonesian government agencies once the multilateral group has established concrete objectives and a way forward. We hope to leverage this new grouping into our effort to further improve Indonesia's Tier Two standing after it was removed from the Watchlist earlier this year. HEFFERN