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30 human traffickers arrested
The West Nusa Tenggara Police has uncovered 30 human trafficking cases in the past two months, rescuing 307 victims who would have been smuggled as migrant workers to the Middle East and Malaysia, it says
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he West Nusa Tenggara Police has uncovered 30 human trafficking cases in the past two months, rescuing 307 victims who would have been smuggled as migrant workers to the Middle East and Malaysia, it says.
"We have named 30 suspects in the 30 cases, including five women," the provincial police detectives chief Snr. Comr. William Lamenng told reporters Tuesday.
William said of the 307 victims, 185 were men who would have been sent to Malaysia and that the remaining 122 were women who would have been employed as domestic workers in Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan.
He said smuggling attempts had been foiled at several border gates in the province, including Selaparang airport, Mataram and Lembar harbor in West Lombok, which is a transit point between West Nusa Tenggara and Bali.
William said all of the victims' documents were fake, including their IDs.
"The victims' ages are between 17 and 19 years old. They were increased to between 21 and 25 years old," he said, adding that the ages had been inflated to meet the age requirement of 21 for a migrant worker to work in the Middle East.
He said the suspects had also been sporting falsified documents declaring their education backgrounds. The government requires that a migrant worker must be junior high-school graduate.
"Many of the victims are illiterate, meaning that they did not go to school," William said.
He said he believed that migrant workers would be at a greater risk of being tortured or harassed by their overseas employers if they were uneducated or had no skills.
"The employers pay a lot of money to get the workers. But the maids can not do their jobs. So then they are beaten and tortured," William said.
He said many male workers that went to Malaysia did not possess working documents.
He said the apprehended workers had been returned to their hometowns on Lombok. The 30 suspects were still being detained.
He said the suspects would be charged under Law No. 21/2007 on human trafficking which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a Rp 600 million fine.
William said that as well as being one of the largest suppliers of migrant workers, the province was also used as a transit point by illegal migrants traveling from the Middle East to Australia.
"Most of them come from Afghanistan and Iraq on ships that dock at the maritime province of Rote, East Nusa Tenggara, and then cross to Australia."
"We captured 60 people attempting to smuggle themselves last year," he said, but refused to elaborate.
