Six Countries Join Forces against Human Trafficking

KOMPAS/PRADIPTA PANDU

Relatives of the 29 Indonesian women who are believed to be victims of a “mail-order bride” human trafficking scheme attend a press conference on 23 June 2019 at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Five Southeast Asian countries alongside China have been working together since 2004 to fight the trafficking of human beings, including trafficking through mail-order bride schemes.

The five Southeast Asian countries are Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In the second half of 2018, for instance, as reported by the Associated Press on June 21, joint operations between these countries managed to rescue 1,130 kidnapped foreign women.

The police also arrested 1,322 suspects, including 262 foreigners, for allegedly coaxing and then kidnapping women with promises of work or marriage.

According to Mimi Vu, the advocacy director of Vietnam-based Pacific Links, which advocates for victims of women trafficking, the joint raids proved that human trafficking issues were getting serious attention across governments.

“Cooperation is key in successful raids,” Vu said.

Chinese Public Security Ministry deputy director Chen Shiqu said China had established eight liaison offices to coordinate with police forces in Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos in the fight against human trafficking and to help kidnapped women return to their home countries.

Furthermore, China has also intensified its patrols and border checks to arrest human traffickers.

In Jakarta, Paramadina University international relations lecturer Benny Yusriza said on Thursday (11/7/2019) that human trafficking was a highly complex issue and the solution should not merely involve punishing those involved. Prevention must be prioritized.

Benny said that governments in Southeast Asia were more focused on criminal prosecution while prevention and protection were often seen as mere “options”.

The Indonesian office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that law enforcement and the safety of women trapped in mail-order bride schemes should be prioritized. IOM Indonesia counter-trafficking and labor unit head Among Pundhi Resi said his office facilitated legal protection and the questioning of human trafficking victims while they were still abroad.

“We also provide social support to help victims recover once they are home again, as this affects the victims’ psychological condition in giving statements while their cases are being processed,” Among said.

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

Immigration officers prepare documents for processing passports on 18 June 2019 at the Immigration Office in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. The immigration office is intensifying its background checks on passport applications and has implemented an integrated digital system to share data with the population and civil registration office as part of its efforts to prevent human trafficking.

Pull factors

Demand for mail-order brides in China has risen in recent years. The phenomenon was triggered by the country’s one-child policy since 1979. In an article in The ASEAN Post (10/10/2018), the Chinese

Academy of Social Sciences estimated that the one-child policy would lead to there being 40 million more marriage-age men than women in the same age range by 2020.

Population data gathered in 2017 from the National Bureau of Statistics of China showed that the country had 711.3 million men (51.17 percent) and 678.7 million women (48.83 percent), with a gap of 33 million.

Benny said the gender imbalance was a pull factor in the trafficking of human beings under mail-order bride schemes, with the victims mostly coming from Southeast Asia. Furthermore, many Chinese men from the lower-middle class see marrying women from outside China to be more reasonable, as marrying Chinese women is seen as requiring much more money.

“Chinese men are often required to have their own homes and incomes [to marry Chinese women]. There are certain materialistic demands,” Benny said.

The situation is then combined with a dominant push factor in the women’s home countries, namely poverty.

Benny said the government should prioritize prevention in order to tackle human trafficking under mail-order bride schemes more seriously. At the same time, the government should also cut the links between market and demand. “Cutting means arresting local brokers, strengthening boundaries like immigration and Indonesian representative offices abroad and improving monitoring in local regions,” he said.

Vu said bigger efforts than just looking for victims would be required to effectively end human trafficking. (AP/ADH/GAL/SON)