Human Trafficking Report demotes Indonesia to Watch List Level 2

The US Department of States in the 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) degraded Indonesia from Tier 2 to Tier 2 Watch List because the government did not fully achieve the minimal standards for eradicating trafficking but is making substantial efforts.

"Coordination between the national anti-trafficking task force and its provincial and local-level counterparts was insufficient to translate central government policies into nationwide implementation." 

Therefore, Indonesia was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List," said the report released by the United States State Department last July 20. 

The report said that nations on the Tier 2 watch list require special attention due to a high or considerably increasing number of victims and a failure to show evidence of increased measures to combat human trafficking. Tier 2 countries, meanwhile, are not entirely compliant with the minimum criteria but are making substantial efforts to do so.

The report acknowledged the Indonesian government supported the repatriation of Indonesian migrant workers who had been used in trafficking abroad and referred some victims of trafficking to social services. The government, however, failed to combat official complicity in trafficking offenses.

"The lack of robust, systematized victim identification procedures continued to hinder the proactive identification of victims overall, particularly male victims, while the government’s protection services remained inadequate as they did not specifically address the needs of trafficking victims," the report said.

The report recommended that Indonesia investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers, including officials who overlook, enable, or participate in trafficking offenses. Finalize and implement a national action plan to combat trafficking, establish a data collection system to track anti-trafficking efforts at all levels of law enforcement, and create a national protocol that clarifies roles for prosecuting trafficking cases outside victims’ home provinces.

Human traffickers exploit domestic and international victims in Indonesia, as recorded over the past five years, and export victims from Indonesia. Each of the 34 provinces of Indonesia is both a source and a destination for trafficking.

The government believes that more than two million of the six to eight million Indonesians working overseas, primarily women in the domestic sector, are illegal or have overstayed their visas, increasing their risk of being trafficked.

According to the International Justice Mission (IJM) Global Hub Against Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, the United States 2022 Trafficking in Person (TIP) report highlights the various solutions implemented by governments around the world and the IJM to combat online sexual exploitation.

Furthermore, TIP recommends methods and a collaborative effort required between the government and like-minded partners to deter human trafficking and hold perpetrators accountable, so that the shared pursuit of ending impunity for trafficking crimes can be achieved with steadfast measures.

The pursuit of proactively preventing human trafficking can occur when a country's government continues to collaborate with civil society and the international community to enhance and improve policies, legislation, and mechanisms to further reduce and eliminate the crime of human trafficking (Kasmir Nema).