Report spurs pledges to fight child trafficking

Smugglers spirited girls out of destitute Indonesian province

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian official vowed to do more to combat human trafficking after an investigation by The Associated Press revealed that scores of trafficked girls have disappeared from one of the nation’s poorest regions.

Josef Nae Soi, the vice governor of East Nusa Tenggara province, said officials will work with police to try to find the missing girls. He said officials also are strengthening checks at airports and seaports to block attempts by traffickers to smuggle migrant workers abroad. In the past two months, officials have rescued 386 people who were being smuggled, he said.

Soi’s comments came one day after the AP revealed in a report that possibly hundreds of teenage girls have vanished from East Nusa Tenggara after falling prey to illegal recruiters promising well-paying jobs in neighboring Malaysia.

The missing girls are among thousands of Indonesians who have migrated to wealthier countries in Asia and the Middle East for work, only to die or disappear.

The AP has documented more than 61,000 migrants dead or missing worldwide since 2014, a tally that keeps rising.

In drought-plagued East Nusa Tenggara, where unemployment is high and farming difficult, migrating to Malaysia for work has long been a common practice. Those who find jobs can earn more money in a few years than in a lifetime at home.

But in recent years, traffickers have moved into the province hunting for new, unsuspecting workers, particularly teenage girls who don’t understand the danger. Many girls end up working as maids for families that overwork and underpay them. Others are forced into prostitution.

In November, the province imposed a temporary ban on the sending of workers abroad, Soi said. But advocates say the ban is unlikely to have any real impact, given that girls from the region are not migrating through legal pathways.

“It’s not going to solve the problem because the traffickers will just create new routes,” said Sister Laurentina, a nun and counter-trafficking advocate in West Timor who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.

Soi said the government is planning stricter requirements for those who want to work abroad and will improve training centers for prospective migrant workers. The government also plans to expand efforts to educate village officials on how to spot illegal recruiters who may be hunting for girls in their communities. And Soi said he will travel to Malaysia in January to speak with officials there.

Malaysian police say they have increased their efforts to curb trafficking, but they insist that little can be done if Indonesian workers enter the country with falsified documents. Illegal recruiters in Indonesia often falsify the girls’ ages on immigration documents.

“Their passports are valid documents,” said Maszely Minhad, who heads the national police unit that deals with human trafficking and migrant smuggling. “It’s very difficult for us to determine their age. Of course if it’s very suspicious, the most we can do is reject and send them back. But when their papers are in order, what can we do?”

Maszely said Malaysian and Indonesian police are sharing intelligence to try to thwart traffickers.

Tatan Syuflana The Associated Press Sister Laurentina, left, stands next to the tombstone of Adelina Sau in West Timor, Indonesia. Adelina died while working as a maid for a Malaysian family.