Indonesia is a source, transit, and destination country for women, children, and men trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.
The greatest threat of trafficking facing Indonesian men and women is that posed by conditions of forced labor and debt bondage in more developed Asian countries and the Middle East.
The government stopped permitting Indonesian women to travel to Japan and South Korea as “cultural performers,” to curtail a practice that led to victims being trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.
However, in 2007 traffickers increasingly used false documents, including passports, to obtain tourist visas for women and girls who are subsequently forced into prostitution in Japan, through the unlawful exploitation of recruitment debts as high as $20,000 each.
A significant number of Indonesian men and women who migrate overseas each year to work in the construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and domestic service sectors are subjected to conditions of forced labor or debt bondage in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria, France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are the top destinations for legal and illegal Indonesian migrant workers who are trafficked for domestic servitude, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor.
Some workers, often women intending to migrate, entered trafficking and trafficking-like situations during their attempt to find work abroad through licensed and unlicensed PJTKIs.
Recruitment agencies routinely falsified birth dates, including for children, in order to apply for passports and migrant worker documents.
Malaysians and Singaporeans constitute the largest number of sex tourists, and the Riau Islands and surrounding areas operate a “prostitution economy,” according to local officials.
[6][7][8] The Indonesian government demonstrated increased efforts to combat trafficking in persons for commercial sexual exploitation in 2007 and implement its April 2007 comprehensive anti-trafficking law.
Separately, local police in North Sumatra, South Sulawesi, Bali, Lombok, and West Kalimantan broke up trafficking syndicates.
Some individual members of the security forces reportedly engaged in or facilitated trafficking, particularly by providing protection to brothels and prostitution fronts in discos, karaoke bars, and hotels, or by receiving bribes to turn a blind eye.
In May 2007, a former consul general in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, was found guilty of graft for overcharging for passport fees and sentenced to two years in prison.
Indonesian police similarly cooperated actively with U.S. law enforcement to arrest and expel American pedophiles sexually abusing children.
Indonesian security forces participating in peacekeeping initiatives abroad received training on sexual exploitation and trafficking in persons prior to deployment.