Nur Janti, Jakarta – A government task force has rescued nearly 2,000 victims of human trafficking across the country over the past month, but this could be "the tip of the iceberg", an official has said, as more people fall prey to employment scams.

Coordinating Legal, Political and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD, who is serving as an advisor on the human trafficking task force, said on Tuesday that from June 5 to July 3, the police had named 698 suspects in the trafficking of more than 1,934 victims.

The victims included about 600 people who were about to be sent abroad from Tunon Taka seaport in Nunukan, North Kalimantan.

Of the 1,934 victims, 65.5 percent were migrant workers, 26.5 had been forced into sex work, 6.6 percent were below the legal working age and 1.4 percent were lured into working illegally as crew on ships.

Some of the migrant workers were tricked with promises of high salaries into working for online gambling scams. Others were forced into prostitution or made to sell their organs.

"This process [of cracking down on human trafficking] will continue to be carried out," Mahfud told journalists on Tuesday.

Several recent cases have highlighted the country's human trafficking problem. In May of this year, the government, acting on President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's instruction, overhauled the human trafficking task force to ramp up its efforts to stop exploitation and protect vulnerable job seekers.

The President also instructed National Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo to take stern measures against police officers who enabled human traffickers. Listyo appointed Insp. Gen. Asep Edi Suheri, deputy head of the National Police's Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) to lead the task force, replacing Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Bintang Puspayoga. Bintang had led the task force since its establishment in 2021.

The leadership was changed because the women's empowerment ministry had no authority to conduct criminal investigations into human trafficking cases, said Human Development and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy, another advisor for the task force.

"[The cases uncovered so far] are like the tip of the iceberg. Within one month, the authorities rescued hundreds of people. That is why we reorganized the task force to focus more on law enforcement," Muhadjir said on Tuesday.

According to the Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection Agency (BP2MI), only 4.6 million of the 9 million Indonesian migrant workers currently abroad are legally registered for their positions. The remaining 48.8 percent are working illegally, and the agency has no accurate record of either their occupations or their places of residence overseas.

Although the government has clear regulations on human trafficking, such as the 2007 Human Trafficking Law and the 2017 Migrant Worker Protection Law, violations remain rampant in the country, and some government officials have been involved in the crime networks.

"[The crime networks] were [once] untouchable in this country because certain government officials backed them," BP2MI head Benny Ramdhani said, without revealing their identities.

The BP2MI has enlisted the help of the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), which is currently tracing transactions suspected to be related to human trafficking networks.

Meanwhile, the police are set to work with their counterparts in Malaysia and Myanmar to combat human trafficking.

Source: https://asianews.network/indonesian-government-rescues-nearly-2000-human-trafficking-victims