I

t has been seven months since Farzaneh Ansari, 22, and her husband were picked up by personnel of the East Nusa Tenggara Police in the waters off Sumba Island, their last stop-over on their journey to Australia.

The Iranian couple and some 80 other undocumented migrants were on their way from East Java when suddenly their boat broke down.

Since their detention, the couple has been struggling with life in the Kupang detention center. The couple shares an 18-square-meter cell with another Iranian family '€” Setareh, her husband and her 11-year-old daughter.

In the morning, the cell becomes their living room where Setareh, Farzaneh and other detainees hang out. At night, they spread thin mattresses on the floor for members of their families to sleep on.

The women acknowledge the cell offers little comfort, let alone privacy. However, their situation is far better than that of single men living in the detention center, who must share their sleeping quarters with up to 15 detainees to a cell.

The facility houses a total of 124 undocumented migrants from Iran, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan '€” exceeding its maximum capacity of 90 people.

Many of them are waiting to be interviewed by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) officials to get refugee status. Some claim to have waited for more than six months for their interviews.

Limited space, lack of facilities and an uncertain future had caused stress among the detainees, Kupang detention center head, Syahrifullah said. '€œDetainees under great stress are more likely to have an outburst or carry out violent acts. Some years ago, a group of disgruntled detainees tied one of our officers to a flagpole. ['€¦] It is important for us to manage their stress level,'€ he said.

Syahrifullah has taken a personal approach to reducing the stress of the detainees such as by always leading Friday prayers with the Muslim detainees. '€œAfter the prayers, I listen to their stories of hardship and try to give them some encouragement,'€ he said, adding that the center also held Sunday services for Christian detainees.

On a limited budget, Syahrifullah has built modest playgrounds for the detainees to play volleyball and badminton. He has also set up a small farm for the detainees to learn to grow vegetables.

With the support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Syahrifullah regularly takes a group of detainees for recreational activities outside the facility, such as swimming. '€œMy home is close to the detention center, so I can watch them closely. If I see a detainee is depressed, I will take him for a walk to let off steam,'€ he said.

In spite of the program, the detention center continues to limit the detainees'€™ freedom.

'€œThe immigration officers keep our cell phones. They let us make phone calls three times per day, sometimes we are only permitted to have one phone call only,'€ Farzaneh said.

Syahrifullah claims that his strategy works. Since 2012, no escape attempt or significant incident has
occurred in the facility.

The Kupang detention center is ranked as one of the best among 13 detention centers across Indonesia, according to the Law and Human Rights Ministry'€™s Immigration Directorate General.

Data from the UNHCR shows that the number of asylum seekers in Indonesia increased 21-fold over the last six years '€” from 385 in 2008 to 8,260 in 2013.

Overcrowding, coupled with lax security, led to a fatal incident in North Sumatra'€™s Medan detention center in April last year. A brawl between two groups of Myanmar migrants of different faiths in the facility led to the deaths of eight inmates.