Jakarta. ASEAN recently held a meeting on protecting migrant workers from human trafficking in Vietnam on Wednesday local time.

Silmy Karim, the director-general of Indonesia’s immigration office, told the conference that ASEAN needed to pay attention to this issue. He said that migrant workers helped contribute to quality and inclusive economic growth in ASEAN.

"Indonesia, with its abundant human resource potential, is an easy target for human trafficking syndicates in ASEAN, where more than 85 percent of its victims are smuggled into, from, and within the region," said Silmy.

In 2020-2023, 2,434 cases related to online scams were recorded as being handled by Indonesian representatives in the Southeast Asia Region, including Cambodia with 1,233 people, Myanmar with 205 people, the Philippines with 469 people, Laos with 276 people, Thailand with 187 people, Vietnam with 34 people, and Malaysia with 30 people. This figure has increased sharply compared to the previous year. In 2021, 116 cases were recorded from Cambodia, and 77 cases in Myanmar. 

Cambodia is the country with the most cases in Southeast Asia, with an increase in the number of cases of up to 8 times. Many of the cases revolve around online scamming such as fake investments, love scams, money laundering, and others. The victims are recruited and then ensnared by the promise of lucrative jobs in neighboring countries, but end up being exploited.

Forms of labor exploitation experienced include long working hours, document retention, excessive fines, and very limited movement and communication restrictions, to threats or acts of violence carried out by companies against Indonesian citizens. 

"President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed law enforcement officers to prevent and eradicate transnational crimes such as human smuggling from Indonesia to foreign countries. The immigration directorate general is making efforts to prevent and eradicate human smuggling through regional and international cooperation," Silmy said.

Cooperation among ASEAN member countries has contributed significantly to efforts to repatriate Indonesian citizens who are victims of human trafficking. 

In 2022, around 484 Indonesian citizens were repatriated from Cambodia, including 202 by charter plane, and 23 Indonesian citizens from Laos. In July 2023, 10 Indonesian citizens were repatriated from Cambodia with the assistance of the Cambodian government. About 26 Indonesian citizens got repatriated from Myanmar with the assistance of the Indonesian Embassy in Yangon after being suspected of being victims of human trafficking. 

In June 2023, Indonesia and the Philippines held a rescue operation for 137 Indonesian citizens who were trapped in an online fraud company.

The meeting ended up with four documents that became the new guidelines proposed by the chair, Laos,to help combat transnational crime, according to the press release.