Indonesian Jesuit: Migrants are modern slaves, let us help them regain dignity
Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Every year "at least 700 thousand Indonesians leave to earn a living abroad and are already around 6 million workers who have left the country," partly because of the economic crisis says Fr. Benedictus Hari Juliawan SJ, a Jesuit and an expert in social and economic problems of the Catholic University of Sanata Dharma (Yogyakarta).
The problem of migrants "shows us that even today there is a form of modern slavery - says the priest - suffered by people who are trapped by the human trafficking mafia and forced to work till they drop in Indonesia's remote eastern islands. We work to combat this phenomenon, and we want to do even more. "
Since 2010, the Indonesian Province of the Jesuits (Provindo) is active in helping migrants, both internal and from abroad.
Provindo aims to provide financial support and humanitarian aid to Indonesians who leave their homeland in search of work, and citizens of Southeast Asian nations that reach Indonesian shores in search of a better future, who often end up prey for unscrupulous businessmen.
Indonesian workers abroad are subjected to harassment and abuse. "There are already many humanitarian groups working in this field - said Fr. Benedictus - but we want to do more to ensure dignity to these people. "
"Last August - he says - a friend of the International Organization for Migrants (IOM), based in Jakarta, he needed some translators from Burma to facilitate communication with the IOM in 40 destitute fishermen from Myanmar, who were kept in detention for further investigation. "
"Some young Burmese Jesuits studying philosophy in Jakarta - continues Fr. Benedictus - went to help. The history of these 'lost' fishermen, some of them minors, threw this sad reality in our face".
As very often happens, the Burmese workers were duped by offers of work in Thailand and embarked on makeshift boats to Indonesia, where they were held captive on the islands turned into forced labor camps.
"In 2000, the UN approved the Palermo Protocols, but it took seven years for the Indonesian authorities to 'translate' and to apply it in its rules. These protocols - says the Jesuit - lay down the criteria for identifying victims of human trafficking, which is defined as the 'recruitment, transportation, transfer, through the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud , deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability '. "
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11/08/2017 20:05
