Sita W. Dewi, Jakarta – The National Police has launched an investigation into the practice of "slavery" at a waste-recycling factory in Tangerang, Banten, including an allegation that members of the Tangerang Police were involved in providing protection for the perpetrators.
Head of the Tangerang Police detective unit Comr., Shinto Silitonga, said that some of the victims, who were forced to work in hellish conditions, told investigators that they had witnessed three police personnel providing protection for the illegal practice at the factory.
Shinto said that the police were also investigating other irregularities including the forgery of documents used to set up the plant. "The crime scene is in Sepatan Timur subdistrict, but the company permit was issued for a location in Cikupa, which is quite far from here," Shinto said.
Late on Friday night, 34 workers from a factory in the East Sepatan district of Tangerang regency were freed from the torturous working hours and treatment meted out to them by their employer for two years.
Tangerang regency police named Juki Irawan, 40, along with the firm's four foremen, Tedi, Tio, Dirman and Poldes, as suspects for depriving the 34 individuals of their liberty and torturing them. Two other suspects were still at large.
The workers were forced to work 18 hours with only two meals a day and no pay, although they were promised a Rp 600,000 (US$62) monthly wage. Their cellular phones, clothes and wallets were confiscated and they were placed in a 6 by 8 meter room with no windows and forced to share a bathroom.
Other workers said that they were crammed into a single bedroom where they had to rest after a long day at work. Some workers told horrific details about their incarceration with some saying that they had to use detergent to wash.
Activists from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said that some of the victims suffered from serious burns to their skin for working very close to a furnace used to boil tin that was used to produce a traditional frying pan.
Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto, however, denied that members of the police could have any involvement in the criminal act.
"We did not find information from the questioning," he said. Rikwanto added that currently the local police in Tangerang are playing a mediation role in a dispute between the victims and their employers.
A member of the House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal and human rights, Eva Kusuma Sundari of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), called on the local police chief to start a probe into the possible involvement of security authorities in the area.
"The police should also question soldiers and policemen assigned to villages in the area because the illegal practices had gone on for months. I doubt if they did not know about it," Eva said.
Eva also said that local officials in the area were complicit in the matter. "I received information that the factory owner has ties with a local leader in the area. The police should investigate the allegation that there are people who did not want this practice to be exposed," she told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
Separately, Muji Handaya, the director general of the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry's Development and Supervision department (PPK), said that the ministry is now working with local police to investigate the case.
Muji said that the ministry will press separate charges against the factory owner. "We are investigating possible violations of Law No. 13/2003 on Manpower. Law No. 5/1984 on Industrial Relations and Law No. 23/2003 on Child Protection," Muji said.
As of Sunday evening, Muji said that all 34 had arrived in their hometowns in Cianjur, West Java and Lampung. "Most of them were suffering from malnutrition and anemia. The hospital's medical staff had given them medication before they allowed these workers to go home," Muji said. (ogi)