“It is a big step to take another human life, it is not be done lightly.”
-Winston Churchill-
Discussing ‘bout global problems pastinya ga akan ada habisnya, terlalu banyak permasalahan yang ada.
Salah satunya Slavery. Di pikiran kita waktu denger kata slavery ga akan jauh sama slavery era kompeni, dan memang slavery yang ada di mainset sebagian besar orang adalah slavery karena sejenis penjajahan. Tapi ternyata banyak loh jenis Slavery yang lainnya, yang kita sebut bukan Slavery tapi perlakuannya sama.
So what slavery exactly? And what types of slavery that exist today?
Let’s talk ‘bout that,
Slavery is a system that requires a person to work with the force and not treated properly. The treatment is not feasible to physically or psychologically. In the modern era like now, there is modern slavery too. Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, but the condition are the same.
Nowadays, examples of modern slavery such as bonded labor, early and forced marriage, forced labor, human trafficking, child labor, etc.
Bounded labor for example, when a person is required to work for a long time, 7 days a week until 365 in a year or more, just to pay the loan. They have been duped into taking a loan for a reason and when they can not pay, they are forced to work. They are paid only with food. This happens continuously until finally down to the next generation.
Early and forced marriage. Mostly occur in children under age. This is one of kind of slavery, first because their marriage is a compulsion (mostly in girls). Though the girl does not want to get married, but because of pressure from her family so they are forced to become the "breadwinner" to take advantage of her husband's wealth. And second, girls are actually still have the right to enjoy their life as a child without burdened with duties as a wife or a mother. And from the health and psychological aspects, they are clearly not ready. Their mentally and physically are still children, who are in the developmental stages. It's very clear violation of human rights.
Forced labour is when people are forced to work with very small fee or even not paid at all. A worker at the factory with a wages below the minimum wages can be classified as a slavery also. Because the workers in the factory work for long hours with very short rest periods but get very small fee. Most frequently found in industries, such as; agriculuture and fishing, domestic work, construction, mining, quarrying and brick kilns, manufacturing, processing and packaging, Prostitution and sexual exploitation, market trading and illegal activities.
We can see slavery in domestic work in many place in Indonesia. Not only in domestic but more occur in overseas. Slavery was common in our migrant workers in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Even today Saudi Arabia became the world's most dangerous and not very friendly with Indonesia, is due to the high level of violence to our migrant workers there, not even slightly leads to death.
Human trafficking many occurs in the world today. Human trafficking is done by variety of purposes. Human trafficking is the illegal trade of Human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor. People are trafficked and forced to pay employed with very low or even not paid at all. And Indonesia is the main source of human trafficking. Not only that, Indonesia is also a transit and destination of human trafficking. This is very tragic, considering that Indonesia is a moral nation and is contrary to our basic state Pancasila second paragraph of "Kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab".
Human trafficking has been very clearly inhumane, they are violating rights and very uncivilized because they are traded are not treated like human beings.
Many reasons why this could happened. Number of people who do not have a birth certificate to be important causes of human trafficking. In Indonesia about 60%, 6 year olds do not have birth certificates. It's easier for the human trafficking mafia to do their action.
Actually, it is very good if a small child given a job so they have responsibility, this is training for practice their soft skills. But it is different if the children do extremely work, putting their health, education, personal and social development, and even their lives at risk. This is slavery, because this is exploitation. They will face full time work at very early age, get limited or no pay, inability to escape from the povert cycle – no access to education.
And the biggest question is what should government do to address this issue?
And is there anything we can do?
The government should be more assertive to address this problem. The government must address this issue seriously. It is a violation of human rights.
For the case of Indonesian migrant workers who worked in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, etc., the government must prepare the migrant workers that will be sent more better. The government should be more monitoring of migrant workers who previously have no training. The illegal workers are mostly what a lot of mistreatment in the country where they work. Many cases of abuse occur because of lack of preparedness of the migrant workers in their work that resulted in disappointment employer. Language is one of the triggers of violence and abuse against Indonesian migrant workers. Communication is lacking because the language is not understandable, causes employer emotions peaked and there was torture. Therefore, training should be an absolute requirement of the migrant workers before they are shipped. Training language and job preparation training absolute necessary for the workers so that they become qualified workers.
But if this torture is continues or does not reduce or even increased, sending migrant workers should be stop. Although the migrant workers as a hero for foreign exchange, but government can not be selfish to keep letting this happen again and again.
The Government should increased efforts, to protect victims of trafficking. The government supports shelters for Trafficking Victims .
Prevention; the government should increase to raise awareness, make a public service announcement for the example.
And what can we do?
We must support every program the government in tackling this problem. We can pull through regular donations to the foundation's anti-slavery. And the money they used to free the slaves, education, training, treatment of slaves, etc..
We can also do anti-slavery campaign. Pressing the company that provides wages below the minimum wage to the workers, in order to provide better wages.
We must support every program the government in tackling this problem. We can pull through regular donations to the foundation's anti-slavery. And the money they used to free the slaves, education, training, treatment of slaves, etc..
We can also do anti-slavery campaign. Pressing the company that provides wages below the minimum wage to the workers, in order to provide better wages.
