VZCZCXRO0400
PP RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #1005/01 1430141
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 220141Z MAY 08 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9067
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 5058
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2529
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 1021
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 1857
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1994
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 2665
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 2684
RUEHPT/AMCONSUL PERTH 0813
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 001005
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR G/TIP (JSIGMON) EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, DRL/IL, DRL/PHD
DOL FOR ILAB:BSASSER
NSC FOR EPHU
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL ELAB ID
SUBJECT: TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS -- BREAKTROUGH IN TRAINING
KEY AGENCIES
REF: A. JAKARTA 616
B. JAKARTA 415
C. JAKARTA 191
D. (07) JAKARTA 1560
JAKARTA 00001005 001.2 OF 002
1. (U) This message is Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please
handle accordingly.
2. (SBU) SUMMARY: In a major breakthrough in fighting
trafficking in persons (TIP), senior officials from
Indonesia's Manpower Ministry and the Overseas Manpower
Protection Agency (OMPA) recently participated in Department
of Justice/OPDAT training for prosecutors. These two
agencies--which have requested additional USG training--were
cited in the 2007 TIP report as being the least willing to
take steps to enforce the Indonesia's new anti-trafficking
law. Their willingness to participate in training programs
is a product of concerted outreach by Mission. END SUMMARY.
COMMITTING TO TRAINING
3. (SBU) Labatt and the DOJ Intermittent Legal Advisor (ILA)
met OMPA Director Jumhur Hidayat in early April. During our
discussion with Hidayat, he committed to sending senior
officials to OPDAT training and followed through by sending
two officials to the April 29 workshop in Bogor, West Java
(see below for details of this workshop). After hearing how
useful the workshop was, Hidayat committed to send more
officials to workshops in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and
Manado, North Sulawesi, two hotspots for trafficking. OMPA
subsequently sent four officials to the May 13-14 workshop in
Pontianak at its own expense as speakers and participants.
The Manado workshop is scheduled for late May.
4. (SBU) The Manpower Ministry has made a similar commitment
to particpate in OPDAT training. At an International Labor
Organization (ILO) workshop held in January, Labatt delivered
remarks calling for increased Manpower enforcement against
trafficking (ref C). I Gusti Made Arka, Manpower's Secretary
General for Supervision and Monitoring, took our comments to
heart and in April convened a meeting of all department heads
to hear Labatt concerns. At that meetig, he assigned his
Deparrtment heads to attend OPAT training which ILAA
subsequently arranged. A senior official, who Arka assigned
to address the April 29 conference, gave a thoughtful talk on
the need for strong law enforcement and regulation, citing
instances where labor recruitment agencies had engaged in
unlawful practices. Arka subsequently asked that similar
training be extended to hundreds of officials nationwide,
conveyed to ILA in a handwritten note.
SUCCESSFUL WORKSHOPS
5. (SBU) Four senior Manpower Ministry officials each
heading a Manpower department, and two senior OMPA officials,
attended the two-day OPDAT training along with 25 experienced
prosecutors. Speakers at the Bogor conference included ILA
John Shipley; Damianus Bilo, the TIP legal expert working for
DOJ and ICITAP; Azhar Usman, director of health and safety
regulation for the Ministry of Manpower; Irawati Harsono, a
well-known former police official who has worked extensively
with TIP cases and victims; Nia Sujani, a prominent labor
attorney who has been an active voice on TIP issues; Payaman,
a senior Indonesian prosecutor and a member of the Attorney
General Office's Terrorism and Transnational Crimes Task
Force, which handles major TIP prosecutions throughout
Indonesia; and Surung Aratonang, the chief of the Bogor area
prosecutor's office.
6. (SBU) Working with Labatt to involve officials from the
two leading agencies responsible for worker protection, the
ILA designed the course to incorporate aspects relevant to
these agencies. The training had three goals:
--First, to educate participants about the new
anti-trafficking law and other Indonesian laws applicable to
JAKARTA 00001005 002.2 OF 002
labor trafficking and how they all fit together;
--Second, to reemphasize the importance of human trafficking
prosecutions and the unique problems and harms of trafficking
for purposes of labor exploitation;
--Third, to make participants from the regulatory agencies
understand that they have a role, and a responsibility, in
fighting trafficking.
7. (SBU) To facilitate discussion at the conferences, and to
ensure a written resource for future consultation by the
participants and Pusdiklat, ILA generated a handbook that
contained: relevant excerpts of an as-yet-unpublished work
about the new law and TIP prosecutions generally; a copy of
the 2007 law; a summary of other Indonesian laws that could
be used in cases of apparent trafficking; and a "thumbnail"
chart prepared by ILA of laws that could be used to prosecute
TIP offenders.
8. (SBU) DOJ/ILA conducted a similar program in Pontianak,
West Kalimantan on May 13. This area on the island of
Borneo is a major source of victims who are trafficked
abroad, yet prosecutors there have not received any prior
programs related to the 2007 anti-trafficking law, such as
has been previously provided in Jakarta and other parts of
Indonesia. This location, along with Manado, were identified
by Labatt during field visits as locations with severe
trafficking problems but strong political will to address
them if training could be provided (refs A and D).
A BREAKTHROUGH
9. (SBU) Manpower and OMPA eagerness to train officials at
senior levels and requests for more training is a
breakthrough for anti-TIP efforts. Manpower has been absent
from many TIP discussions in the past and when training has
been offered, they sent low ranking officials who had no
effect on policy. For OMPA, formed in early 2007, this is
the first time that their officials have had any TIP
training. With this close cooperation, the U.S. Mission is
in a strong position to push for more vigorous protection of
workers against trafficking and other exploitation due to the
education and goodwill this training had created.
HEFFERN