Immigration and labour restrictions force people to depend on third parties to help them find work abroad. Traditional constraints on women travelling on their own or looking for work abroad, make them more dependent on third parties and so more vulnerable to being exploited.

Recruitment agencies

Indonesians wishing to work abroad as domestics are legally required to go through private recruitment agencies. Some agencies are responsible for human rights abuses within Indonesia as well as for trafficking women to other countries.

The agencies send prospective migrant domestic workers to training camps for several months or even up to a year. The women are not allowed to leave the camps and are often forced to work for the agency staff, carrying out domestic tasks in the camps. They are compelled to sign contracts, which may be in other languages. Physical and sexual abuse have been reported. Poor food and water add to health problems in the camps for which there is little medical care.

Hundreds of these camps exist in Indonesia, with no basic standards, government inspection or regulation. ‘Recruitment’ and ‘harbouring’ fall under the widely accepted UN definition of trafficking, so these abuses are part of the trafficking process.

When the woman eventually arrives at her employment destination, which may typically be Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, or one of the Gulf states, she is not normally paid anything for 5-7 months, in order to pay back extortionate agency fees (from around US$2,500). Even if she is mistreated she cannot leave because of the contract she was forced to sign and the money she ‘owes’ to the agency.

Recent moves by the Indonesian Government have only made the situation worse. Migrant domestic workers have to return to Indonesia to renew their contracts, meaning they must pay the agency fees once more. The Government has also imposed a temporary ban on migrant workers leaving Indonesia, which forces those desperate to migrate to do so illegally and so become more vulnerable to trafficking.

Adek’s story

Adek went to a broker in her town to help her go to Hong Kong, because she had heard from a relative that she could get a better job there for more money. The broker took Adek to an employment agency in Surabaya, East Java, where she had to pay 390,000 Rupias (US$44) for a medical test, uniform, Cantonese language books and cookery books.

Instead of going straight to Hong Kong as she expected, Adek was sent to a training camp in Surabaya. There were around 1,000 women in this camp and conditions were bad. The women were served small portions of food and the water was dirty; many women in the camp were ill as a result. One woman died while Adek was there through lack of medical care. Adek and the other women were forced to carry out tasks for the agency staff, cleaning duties, and undertake long hours of language tuition. Many of the women were forced to work on top of this for very little money.

Adek was not allowed to go outside the camp. Her family was only allowed to visit her for a few hours once every two weeks. There were no telephones for Adek to contact her family and her letters were censored or taken away. Adek was forced to sign contract papers without their being explained to her. After four months, she was taken to Hong Kong to begin her employment, but she was not paid anything for five months. She was told this was to repay the agency fees she owed. Adek faced routine verbal abuse, was not allowed to leave the apartment, and had only one rest day in nine months of employment.