JAKARTA, Indonesia – Fearing child-trafficking gangs will exploit the chaos of the tsunami disaster, Indonesia has placed restrictions on youngsters leaving the country, ordered police commanders to be on the lookout for trafficking and posted special guards in refugee camps.
The gangs, which are well-established in Indonesia, may be whisking orphaned children into trafficking networks, selling them into forced labor or even sexual slavery in wealthier neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.
Such trafficking, if confirmed, would vastly deepen the suffering of children already struck hard by the massive Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami. Indonesia estimates that 35,000 children on Sumatra island’s Aceh province lost one or both parents to the disaster.
Fueling the suspicions, many Indonesians have received mobile phone text messages this week inviting them to adopt orphans from Aceh. Police are investigating the messages.
It’s not clear whether such messages are pranks, real adoption offers or linked in some way to trafficking networks. The Associated Press was unable to get through to phone numbers given on two of the messages.
But child welfare experts warn the messages could be a sign that children are being removed from the province, reducing their chances of being reunited with relatives or surviving parents who may be searching for them.
“I’m sure it’s happening,” said Birgithe Lund-Henriksen, child protection chief in UNICEF’s Indonesia office. “It’s a perfect opportunity for these guys to move in.”
Officials concede that so far they have little hard evidence of specific cases, but say the aftermath of a natural disaster is a perfect breeding ground for such traffic. Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes, children have been separated from their families and the deaths of parents leave their offspring especially vulnerable to criminals.
In Thailand, Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Tuesday that his government was working closely with hospitals to prevent human trafficking gangs from taking advantage of the situation
Indonesian officials were already taking steps, ordering provincial commanders, especially in and near Aceh, to be alert to possible child trafficking. Police officers in some Aceh refugee camps were urging people to be skeptical of anyone claiming to be from a charitable group aiding children or saying they are related to an orphan, National police chief Gen. Da’i Bachtiar said.
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