Human Trafficking: ‘If It Continued, We Would Have Died’
Eighteen-year-old A.M. recalled how she decided to go to Malaysia in 2018. Her tears began to flow when she arrived at the bleakest point in her story. She referred to her time in forced prostitution as “not good work”.
“When I was raped, I cried and screamed for help, but nobody came. But I could hear I had a friend in the next room who was also crying,” A.M. said in an angry tone during an interview at her home in South Central Timor regency, East Nusa Tenggara.
The “friend in the next room” was R.T., 17, who hails from the same village as A.M. The two teenage girls were smuggled to Malaysia and forced into prostitution when A.M. was 17 and R.T. was 16.
When was still in the 11th grade, A.M. had dreamt of working in Malaysia instead of finishing high school. Since her parents died in 2014, A.M. had lived with her grandmother and extended family. The third of four children, she did not want to burden her extended family when most of her relatives were small-scale farmers – including her grandmother, older sister, uncles and aunts.
It seemed to A.M. that her prayers had been answered when she met R.T. and her boyfriend A.H., 25, at an Independence Day event in the village square on 17 Aug. 2018.
R.T. asked A.M. to come with her and find work outside East Nusa Tenggara, with A.H.’s help. Among their options were working as a shopkeeper in Surabaya, East Java.
No goodbyes
The two teens were determined to go, and did not even ask for permission from their families. R.T.’s father Ayub Tanesib, 50, said his daughter never told him about any plans to find work outside of the province, only that she was going to church. “She did not come home afterwards. She left with A.M.,” he said.
A.H. accompanied the two girls on the journey from their village to Kupang. Upon arriving in Kupang, A.H. forced them into a house and forbade them from leaving. It was at the house that the girls met J.A., a man of around 40 years old.
J.A. and A.H. were both “brokers” of potential migrant workers in East Nusa Tenggara. A.H.’s task was to recruit potential migrant workers in local villages and transport them to Kupang, where J.A. would prepare identity papers and travel documents for the “recruits”.
J.A. made fake ID cards for A.M. and R.T. so that they could fly to Surabaya. A.M.’s name had been changed to A.N. on her fake ID card.
At Kupang’s El Tari International Airport, A.M. said that a man had bought her and R.T. plane tickets to Surabaya, which he handed to J.A.
J.A. left A.M. and R.T. at the airport and told them that someone would contact A.M. by phone and pick them up in Surabaya.
No talking
In Surabaya, A.M. and R.T. were first taken to a food stall for a meal. Afterwards, they were told to cover their heads with a scarf and were then taken back to the airport to board a flight to Batam, Riau Islands.
A.M. said that J.A. forbade the girls from talking to anyone once they had departed Kupang. Upon arriving in Batam, a taxi driver picked up A.M. and R.T. and took them to another man at a residence where the two girls stayed for two days. They were then transported to Tanjung Pinang, where they stayed for another three days.
From Tanjung Pinang, the pair was transported by a fishing boat to Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Upon their arrival in Johor, the girls walked across an oil palm plantation to a hut where they were picked up and driven to a hotel near Kuala Lumpur.
A.M. and R.T. were placed in separate rooms on the 10th floor of the hotel, where they were “to serve guests”.
Two days after the girls were “sold” at the hotel, A.M. decided to flee with R.T. “I knew I had to find a way to escape. If this continued, we would have died,” she said.
They tried to file a report at a local police office, but because they did not have legitimate immigration documents, they were arrested and placed in Malaysia’s Kajang Penitentiary. A.M. managed to get out of prison and leave Malaysia after she claimed that she was an illegal migrant worker. R.T. is still in prison.
After leaving Malaysia, it took two months for A.M. to get back to her village, where she mostly stays at home. She is worried that J.A. is looking for her.
Fake documents
Immigration attaché Mulkan Lekat at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said that the embassy had no immigration records under A.M.’s name. He said that many problematic Indonesian migrant workers were in Malaysia who often used fake immigration documents like passports and travel documents in lieu of passport (SPLP).
Consular secretary Yulisdiyah Nuswapadi said that the embassy had not yet located R.T.
She said that in the human trafficking practices that the embassy had uncovered, couriers often accompanied the smuggled persons. Since the trafficked persons were given fake documents, the immigration system could not track them.
“Usually, there are persons in charge [in the trafficking system], like those responsible for transporting [the trafficked persons] to Surabaya or to Johor. There are people in charge [for each of these trips],” said Yulisdiyah.
(MDN/ADY/SPW/JOS/RAZ)