TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
More Indonesian brides trafficked to China
Indonesia is facing a worrying increase of possible human-trafficking cases, with young women from across the archipelago being lured under the guise of "mail-order brides" to China, where the one-child policy has resulted in a gender imbalance and shortage of women to marry
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
I
ndonesia is facing a worrying increase of possible human-trafficking cases, with young women from across the archipelago being lured under the guise of "mail-order brides" to China, where the one-child policy has resulted in a gender imbalance and shortage of women to marry.
Between January and October, the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing, in collaboration with various government agencies and China’s authorities, sent home 36 women who had fallen victim to bride trafficking.
"The main challenge now is how we can all strengthen preventive measures at home, including educating the public so people are not tempted by promises of financial benefits that are usually offered by marriage agents," the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing's deputy chief of mission, Listyowati, said on Thursday on the sidelines of a discussion over the handling of bride trafficking to China.
This year alone, the embassy received a total of 42 complaints filed by Indonesian women who had married Chinese men under such a mail-order bride arrangement, three of whom were underage. The number almost doubled from 2018 with 28 complaints and 2017 with 21 complaints.
Mail-order marriages between Indonesian women and Chinese men have been going on for decades, especially in West Kalimantan, which has a large population of Indonesians of Chinese descent, mainly Hakka Chinese.
Chinese police announced earlier this year that more than 1,100 foreign women, mostly from Southeast Asia, had been rescued in the country in a six-month operation that ended last year, Reuters reported. Some 1,330 suspects were also arrested.
China’s decades-long one-child policy has created a huge gender imbalance, leaving it with far fewer women than men and creating high demand for foreign brides. The situation opens the opportunity for marriage agents to target Indonesian women, luring them to China with the promise of money and a luxurious life.
Indonesia is now looking at a developing trend of mail-order bride businesses not only in West Kalimantan but also other regions such as Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java and Central Sulawesi.
“This is seen as a business opportunity and it's a lucrative one. Someone would pay between Rp 300 million [US$21,208] and Rp 400 million [for a bride]," said the embassy’s minister counsellor for protocol and consular affairs, Ichsan Firdaus. "You can imagine, they are trying to recruit as many women as possible without considering whether or not [their plan] will succeed."
Migrant CARE executive director Wahyu Susilo said that when men must pay a lot of money for a bride, she would be indebted to her husband.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch for these people,” he said.
Ichsan said the reports mostly came from Henan province and Hebei province, two of the most populated provinces in China.
“We try to maintain contact with the authorities in Hebei, so if an Indonesian citizen extends a residence visa or wants to get married, they are told to report to the embassy first,” Ichsan said.
The embassy, however, has no clear picture on how many Indonesians women are married to Chinese men because of a severe lack of data.
In the end, Ichsan added, the embassy should examine the marriages on a case-by-case basis because not all ended up in abuse or exploitation. Some Indonesian women who married men from Hebei said they were happily married, according to interviews conducted by the embassy.
Listyowati said the embassy had taken a number of steps in collaboration with local authorities, while Indonesia has raised this issue at various diplomatic levels, such as during a meeting between Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok in late July.
Retno has also summoned the Chinese ambassador to Indonesia for an explanation on the issue, while the Indonesian ambassador in Beijing has met with the director general of consular affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry to convey a similar complaint.
Listyowati said while the Chinese government had shown good faith in conducting investigations, there were still different perspectives of such cases that hindered efforts to end the practice.
“Some still consider this an ordinary household problem, where two people with different nationalities are legitimately married to each other. However, from our point of view, the process from [Indonesia] has already indicated human trafficking,” she said.
In late June, the Singkawang Police in West Kalimantan foiled an alleged human trafficking scheme in Singkawang and arrested a suspect identified only as NK who was planning to take three women to China to marry them off to Chinese men.
The Chinese Embassy in Jakarta was not available for immediate comment.
