NGO Says Up To 500 Migrant Workers Extorted Daily By Police, Military, Officials

The Jakarta Globe, Aug 06, 2014


Jakarta. Advocacy group Migrant Care estimated that every day between 400 to 500 Indonesian migrant workers are extorted by security and immigration officers on their return to Indonesia, providing a glimpse of how entrenched corruption in the field could be.

Migrant Care chairwoman Anis Hidayah came to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) office on Wednesday to submit the group’s findings. Anis also came with six former migrant workers who claimed to have been victims of a similar extortion scheme.

According to Anis, the group has recorded more than 1,000 extortion cases over the last ten years, which are said to involve police and military officials as well as from other government agencies.
“Everyday, 400 to 500 TKI [Indonesian migrant workers] are extorted,” she said pointing to the group’s estimate. The figure, she said, represented 45 percent of Indonesian migrant workers returning home everyday. The extortion scheme “is systematic,” Anis continued.

The culprits, Anis alleged, are from the Military, Police, the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and the Indonesian Workers Placement and Protection Agency (BNP2TKI).

The meeting came after the KPK and the National Police conducted a joint-raid on July 25 at Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Jakarta to verify reports of widespread extortion practices against Indonesian workers returning home.
Siti Badriah, one of the six migrant workers who testified before the KPK, said she was extorted on her return from work in Brunei in 2004.
She said an officer approached her on arriving at Soekarno-Hatta’s Terminal 2 and told her that because of her migrant worker’s status, her immigration credentials had to be processed at Terminal 3. She was told to board a bus to take her to the designated terminal.
The minute she stepped on the bus, the extortion began.
She was asked to pay off the bus driver, the porters and immigration officials before she was allowed to leave the airport.

“Why so little? You work overseas,” Badriah said quoting a rogue official asking her for more pay, adding that she eventually spent at least Rp 300,000 for the series of pay offs.

KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said that the agency was conducting its own research on the practice and was asking Migrant Care for its input, but did not elaborate further.
“There are some testimonies [from extorted workers]. So [the findings] might even be more shocking,” he said.



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