Tackling Timor’s Human Traffic
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Tackling Timor’s Human Traffic
Human trafficking is a growing problem in East Timor, but despite an increase in the number of potential victims identified, there has not been a single conviction.
Timorese and foreign nationals are trafficking people for sexual exploitation, forced labor and agricultural work, said Heather Komenda, counter-trafficking program manager for the International Organization for Migration.
Since East Timor gained independence in 2002, local women have been lured away from their homes and recruited with promises of work abroad.
Francisco Belo, a coordinator for the counter-trafficking project of the Alola Foundation, an nongovernmental organization founded in 2001 to respond to the needs of women in Timor, said, “We have heard of almost 100 such cases.”
“Especially near the border [with West Timor], traffickers have recruited women to work in Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in southeast Asia. The families in Timor haven’t heard from those women [again].”
Traffickers employ a number of strategies including bogus nongovernmental organizations in Timor offering overseas employment. The population of Timor is 90 percent Catholic and some traffickers even employ people impersonating nuns to recruit people, Belo said. Perhaps a bigger problem is the number of people being trafficked into the country. “Timor has become a destination for human traffickers. We have found people from Thailand, Indonesia, China and the Philippines — most of them working in the sex industry and most of them victims of human trafficking,” he said .
Belo said the number of female commercial sex workers in Dili was now probably close to 550.
Back in 2004, the prosecutor general estimated there were 400 Chinese and 300 Vietnamese possible victims of trafficking in Dili.
Trafficking in persons is a criminal offense under Article 81 of the Immigration and Asylum Act of 2003. Trafficking in minors carries a jail term of 5 to 12 years.
Lauren Rumble, chief of the Child Protection Unit of the UN Children’s Fund, or Unicef, said East Timor’s “government has been determined to set up systems to prevent and respond to child trafficking. The Ministry of Social Solidarity in 2008 deployed 13 child protection officers [one for each district] to monitor and manage cases of vulnerable children. A new law on adoption and guardianship is being developed and a birth registration program is in place.”
The government, however, has yet to ratify the world’s primary antitrafficking treaty, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Crime.
“The government is considering ratifying the protocol this year,” IOM’s Komenda said, adding that this would further develop the Immigration and Asylum Act, especially in terms of victim protection and assistance.
While enforcement of trafficking laws has proved difficult, it is often easier to arrest suspected traffickers through laws other than Article 81, such as document fraud.
In 2007, for example, the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the prosecutor’s office twice ordered immigration to deny a group of Timorese females, which included minors, exit visas to leave the country because information suggested the group was to be trafficked to Syria via Malaysia. A Nigerian man was accused of recruiting the group.
No witnesses came forward and Article 81 could not be applied. However, the man was subsequently arrested twice for possession of fake passports before immigration officials asked him to voluntarily leave the country. He did.
A big part of Alola and IOM’s work is raising awareness.
“We produce pamphlets, posters, and CDs to spread the word on the radio and TV about the dangers of human trafficking, and we deliver training workshops,” Belo said.
This year IOM plans to establish Timor’s first shelter for victims of trafficking, with funding from the UN Development Program-Spain’s Millennium Development Goal Achievement Fund.
Komenda said: “The government also has an inter-agency trafficking working group. We support them to develop national action plans. We are happy the government is taking it seriously, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”
Integrated Regional Information Network
Human trafficking is a growing problem in East Timor, but despite an increase in the number of potential victims identified, there has not been a single conviction.
Timorese and foreign nationals are trafficking people for sexual exploitation, forced labor and agricultural work, said Heather Komenda, counter-trafficking program manager for the International Organization for Migration.
Since East Timor gained independence in 2002, local women have been lured away from their homes and recruited with promises of work abroad.
Francisco Belo, a coordinator for the counter-trafficking project of the Alola Foundation, an nongovernmental organization founded in 2001 to respond to the needs of women in Timor, said, “We have heard of almost 100 such cases.”
“Especially near the border [with West Timor], traffickers have recruited women to work in Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in southeast Asia. The families in Timor haven’t heard from those women [again].”
Traffickers employ a number of strategies including bogus nongovernmental organizations in Timor offering overseas employment. The population of Timor is 90 percent Catholic and some traffickers even employ people impersonating nuns to recruit people, Belo said. Perhaps a bigger problem is the number of people being trafficked into the country. “Timor has become a destination for human traffickers. We have found people from Thailand, Indonesia, China and the Philippines — most of them working in the sex industry and most of them victims of human trafficking,” he said .
Belo said the number of female commercial sex workers in Dili was now probably close to 550.
Back in 2004, the prosecutor general estimated there were 400 Chinese and 300 Vietnamese possible victims of trafficking in Dili.
Trafficking in persons is a criminal offense under Article 81 of the Immigration and Asylum Act of 2003. Trafficking in minors carries a jail term of 5 to 12 years.
Lauren Rumble, chief of the Child Protection Unit of the UN Children’s Fund, or Unicef, said East Timor’s “government has been determined to set up systems to prevent and respond to child trafficking. The Ministry of Social Solidarity in 2008 deployed 13 child protection officers [one for each district] to monitor and manage cases of vulnerable children. A new law on adoption and guardianship is being developed and a birth registration program is in place.”
The government, however, has yet to ratify the world’s primary antitrafficking treaty, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Crime.
“The government is considering ratifying the protocol this year,” IOM’s Komenda said, adding that this would further develop the Immigration and Asylum Act, especially in terms of victim protection and assistance.
While enforcement of trafficking laws has proved difficult, it is often easier to arrest suspected traffickers through laws other than Article 81, such as document fraud.
In 2007, for example, the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the prosecutor’s office twice ordered immigration to deny a group of Timorese females, which included minors, exit visas to leave the country because information suggested the group was to be trafficked to Syria via Malaysia. A Nigerian man was accused of recruiting the group.
No witnesses came forward and Article 81 could not be applied. However, the man was subsequently arrested twice for possession of fake passports before immigration officials asked him to voluntarily leave the country. He did.
A big part of Alola and IOM’s work is raising awareness.
“We produce pamphlets, posters, and CDs to spread the word on the radio and TV about the dangers of human trafficking, and we deliver training workshops,” Belo said.
This year IOM plans to establish Timor’s first shelter for victims of trafficking, with funding from the UN Development Program-Spain’s Millennium Development Goal Achievement Fund.
Komenda said: “The government also has an inter-agency trafficking working group. We support them to develop national action plans. We are happy the government is taking it seriously, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”
Integrated Regional Information Network
2009 Feb 13