This year’s iteration of the Bali Process was convened in two forums, the third government and business forum and the eighth ministerial conference, in Adelaide, Australia on Friday. It was the first ministerial meeting to be held outside Indonesia since the establishment of the Bali Process in 2002, which facilitates discussion and information sharing about refugees and human trafficking, with a membership of 45 states and four international organizations and cochaired by Indonesia and Australia.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi told the government and business forum that the private sector must play a role in fighting human trafficking and forced labor in their businesses and supply chain.

She cited estimates from the International Labor Organization (ILO) that about 27.6 million people became victims of forced labor each day, with the majority of cases starting from bad recruitment processes that even included trafficking.

“I also reiterate the need to pay special attention to the rising trend of online job scams,” Retno said in a recorded press statement on Friday.

Read also: Distrust puts overseas Indonesian trafficking victims in peril

As many as 1,185 Indonesians fell victim to online job scams in neighboring countries that led to human trafficking throughout 2022, according to data from the Foreign Ministry’s overseas citizen protection directorate. Of the number, 864 people were victims of incidents in Cambodia, 107 in the Philippines, 102 in Laos, 81 in Myanmar and 31 in Thailand.

More complex

Retno told the ministerial forum that the issue of trafficking had only become more complex with the growing number of irregular migrants, citing estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that 10.9 million people in the Asia Pacific were at risk of being forcibly displaced this year.

She said that the causes of forced displacement were varied, ranging from conflicts and climate change to economic hardship, while human traffickers had increasingly used technology that made the perpetrators harder to be identified.

“The victims, especially women, are becoming more vulnerable to violence," she said, suggesting that the Bali Process should strengthen prevention measures, fight against misuse of technology and optimize the impacts of their works.

She said that the forum also discussed the importance of addressing the challenges of irregular movements of people that the region has faced lately.

Read also: Activists call on Indonesia to put Rohingya refugees in ASEAN spotlight

The Friday meeting produced the 2023 Adelaide Strategy for Cooperation, which outlines an updated strategy for more agile cooperation between members and international organizations, for example by strengthening law enforcement responses to technology-facilitated people smuggling and trafficking in persons and promoting victim-centered approaches.

The UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) welcomed the renewed commitments of the Bali Process. They also stressed the need for prompt search and rescue and timely, safe disembarkation when the lives of refugees at sea were in danger, describing 2022 as one of the deadliest years in the region, with over 340 Rohingya refugees dead or missing after adrift in the sea.

“We need to save lives. We need a regional conversation to establish a predictable and equitable mechanism for disembarkation and to support states where disembarkation takes place,” UNHCR’s assistant high commissioner for protection Gillian Triggs said in a press release.

Read also: UN praises RI for aiding Rohingya, asks other nations to follow suit

Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and is predominantly seen as a transit country for those seeking asylum in a third country. Indonesia received over 600 Rohingya refugees who arrived in five boats between November 2022 and January of this year.

From talks to action

Rights groups have urged that the Bali Process forum should not stop at talks and instead start taking actions to combat trafficking and to help the Rohingya refugees.

Human Rights Watch's Asia division deputy director Phil Robertson said that governments in the region had not “stepped up” to meet the challenges of human trafficking.

“As the self-proclaimed leading nation in ASEAN, Indonesia needs to step up its efforts to protect refugees and migrants moving at sea, particularly the Rohingya, and the Bali Process offers the best opportunity to do so in a coordinated, right-respecting way,” Robertson told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

He also urged that Bali Process members come up with a coordinated agreement to rescue refugees’ boats at sea to bring them safely ashore, as well as ensure that other Bali Process countries supported those in the frontline by taking refugees for third-country resettlement.