Indonesia is known to be a country of origin, transit, and destination for human trafficking due to a number of factors that are conducive to the crime. First, Indonesia continues to struggle with social issues including poverty, poor education, employment opportunities, and cheap labour which generate motivations to seek jobs abroad. Second, as revealed by the International Labour Organization, every year, about 700.000 documented Indonesian migrant workers leave their homes to seek employment in foreign countries. Meanwhile, the number of undocumented migrants is estimated to be 2 to 4 times higher, with the majority of them are women. Third, Indonesia have enacted regulations to prevent and address human trafficking which includes experienced by migrant workers. However, the enforcement of which is still perceived weak.
Related to these issues, the Master in Law, Faculty of Law at Universitas Gadjah Mada offer several courses that teach students about the policies and legal framework applicable to prevent and address human trafficking. In Indonesia context Indonesia has the Law on Human trafficking which states various mode of human trafficking: sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and human organ. Indonesia also regulates certain protections for victims of human trafficking, particularly women and children. To have better understanding on the issue of human trafficking, it is vital to ensure the students are equipped with not only the doctrinal understanding of law, but also how it operates in a realistic settings. Human trafficking is part of transnational crimes, which it has certain modes of crimes, the challenges faced by the victims, and the protections need to be established that may apply in different countries.
Based on this need, the Master in Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada invites Dr. Julie Ham, an assistant professor from the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong to give a practical about “the challenges of victim protection for human trafficking.” The guest lecture took place on Friday (19/11) and lasted for 100 minutes. This event was successful in attracting public attention to join and was attended from all over Indonesia through an online ZOOM Meeting. The event was also broadcast live streaming from the Kanal Pengetahuan FH UGM YouTube channel. During the event, participants were facilitated with an English-language translator to facilitate understanding. The participants can determine the language to be used to make it easier to understand the material presented by the speakers. In order to improve the quality of learning outcomes, the Master in Law is committed to holding more seminars and guest lectures with multidisciplinary studies.
