Up to 100 former migrant workers and activists staged a rally in Jember on Thursday, demanding relevant authorities launch a raid on syndicates involved in the trafficking of locals to other provinces and countries.

In observance of International Migrant Workers Day, the protesters marched from the city council building to regency and municipal administration buildings carrying posters and banners decrying the rampant trafficking of women and children from the regency.

"An average of 723 women and children are trafficked without documentation to serve as housemaids and sexual workers in other provinces and countries. They are over exploited and underpaid in their workplace," coordinator of the Jember Migrant Workers Movement, M. Cholili, said.

He said authorities could minimize human trafficking if they made a strong coordinated effort to crack down on individuals or local brokers linked with national and international syndicates and impose harsh sanctions against them.

Jember is the fourth largest supplier of overseas workers in East Java, behind Sampang, Pamekasan and Sumenep, all on Madura Island.

Local members of the Indonesian Muslim Labor Union (Sarbumusi) and the Indonesian Nationalist Student Movement called on local authorities to closely monitor training programs for prospective migrant workers and to check the health and competency of workers before they are sent abroad.

Labor exporters who do not provide adequate labor training should be blacklisted, they said, because many labor abuses occur when workers are found unskilled and do not posses the necessary documents.

Meanwhile, Widiatmoko, who handles labor export affairs at the local Manpower and Transmigration Agency, said his office had difficulties monitoring the recruitment of prospective migrant workers because most labor exporters have their offices in Surabaya, Jakarta or Tanjungpinang in Riau Islands province.

"This has made it difficult for us to monitor the protection of recruited migrant workers," he said. (fin)

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