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Jakarta Post

Refugees, asylum seekers rely on generosity to survive

Khonomgul Hakimi, 66, an Afghan woman, sits amid more than a dozen tents set up on a sidewalk in front of the Jakarta Immigration Office detention center in Kalideres, West Jakarta

Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, August 12, 2017

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Refugees, asylum seekers rely on generosity to survive

K

honomgul Hakimi, 66, an Afghan woman, sits amid more than a dozen tents set up on a sidewalk in front of the Jakarta Immigration Office detention center in Kalideres, West Jakarta.

She joined her four family members, including her three-year-old grandson, who for the past nine days have resided in the tents. Paying a people-smuggler, Hakimi fled her country with her family to escape the unending civil war there.

The family landed in Jakarta ten days ago by plane, hoping to find a proper place for transit before eventually getting resettlement in a destination country. However, like many other refugees in the country, she faces a similar fate of having to wait in limbo.

Her family and the other 45 refugees, hailing from war-torn Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Sudan, live in 17 tents donated by a community group called Gerak Bareng, or Move Together.

“I would like to thank Indonesians. They have been very kind and generous,” she told The Jakarta Post in her native language translated by another refugee from Afghanistan named Ali Khan Khashei.

She said she had received various kinds of donations from local people ever since she had stepped foot in Jakarta.

The 20-year-old Ali, who helped the Post understand Hakimi, said that he himself had acquired a refugee card from the UNHCR three years ago, but he has not yet received news on his resettlement to another country.

The group manages to survive day-to-day from donations. Indonesian law does not grant refugees the right to work, leaving most of them to rely on donations given by locals.

After days of occupying the sidewalks, the Immigration Office moved them to a basketball field in the backyard of the detention center as their presence disrupts people, the head of the Jakarta Immigration Detention Center, Buono Adi Sucipto, said.

His office cannot let them live inside the detention center as the rooms are fully occupied. The center has been overwhelmed by an increasing number of refugees besides regular immigration violators.

Buono said he had called for assistance from the Jakarta administration to take immediate steps to house the refugees and asylum seekers, who have been flocking to his office recently.

He said in the beginning, only a handful of people occupied the area outside his office. Now, around 50 people are situated there. Some of them initially set up tents in front of the UNHCR in Kebon Sirih, Central Jakarta.

“The newly issued government regulation stipulates that handling refugees and asylum seekers is not solely the responsibility of the immigration office. But we have yet to see any action from the Jakarta administration,” Buono said on Thursday, referring to presidential regulation No. 125/2016 on the management of refugees and asylum seekers.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo signed the regulation in December last year. The regulation stipulates detailed protocol and which institutions are tasked with assisting displaced people.

According to SUAKA, an Indonesian civil society network advocating for refugee rights, there are 6,392 asylum seekers and refugees living in Jakarta.

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