Back Pay for Trafficked Migrant Workers: An Indonesian Case Study
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Author | Wayne Palmer |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12376 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
Back Pay for Trafficked Migrant Workers:
An Indonesian Case Study
Wayne Palmer*
ABSTRACT
In 2015 the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified almost 1,200 trafficked
migrants working in slave-like conditions on fishing boats in East Indonesia. The IOM helped
the migrants and offered to cover the cost of repatriation to their countries of citizenship. The
Indonesian government appreciated the financial support, not least because the victims’embas-
sies refused to pay. But most victims in one location refused to return to their home country
without the wages owed to them by their trafficker-cum-employers. IOM policy states that
migrants are eligible to use the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) service
if they are unable or unwilling to remain in the host country. But another condition is that
migrants must use the services voluntarily. The IOM could not force the migrants to leave the
country, and national law prevented the Indonesian government from deporting the migrants
because the IOM had identified them as victims of trafficking.
1
INTRODUCTION
In 2015 the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified almost 1,200 trafficked
migrants working in slave-like conditions on fishing boats in East Indonesia. The IOM then pro-
vided direct assistance to the migrants and offered to cover the cost of repatriation to their countries
of citizenship. The Indonesian government was appreciative of the financial support, not least
because the victims’embassies refused to pay. But somewhat unexpectedly for the Indonesian offi-
cials, most victims in one location refused to return to their home country without the outstanding
wages owed to them by their trafficker-cum-employers. IOM policy states that migrants are eligible
to use the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) service if they are unable or
unwilling to remain in the host country. But another condition is that migrants must use the ser-
vices voluntarily. The IOM could not force the migrants to leave the country, and national law pre-
vented the Indonesian government from deporting the migrants because the IOM had identified
them as victims of trafficking.
The migrants’refusal to return to their country of citizenship was a reaction to the fact that they
believed they were owed money for their work. The larger policy issue here is: How should states
respond to exploitation of migrant labour at the intesection between labour migration and human
trafficking (Ford, Lyons, and van Schendel 2012). Who decides if a migrant worker is “trafficked
enough”? (Yea, 2015), and what are the state’s responsibilities to migrant workers who have been
trafficked? In countries that have ratified the UN Trafficking Protocol, which criminalizes human
trafficking in all its forms, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Their Families (hereafter the ICMWR), which requires states to offer
* Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta
doi: 10.1111/imig.12376
©2017 The Author
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (2) 2018
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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