IOM is to expand its collaboration in the field of counter
trafficking with Aisyiyah, the women’s wing of the 30-million
strong Muhammadiyah organization.

IOM Indonesia currently provides return, recovery and
reintegration assistance to trafficking victims, trains law
enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and conducts
awareness-raising activities around the country.

Formed in 1917, Aisyiyah has worked with IOM in West Kalimantan
province, which borders Malaysian Borneo, since 2005. The
group’s network of contacts down to the village level has
already facilitated the successful reintegration of 280 female
trafficking victims identified by IOM.

Over the past 18 months, IOM has organized seven training
sessions for Aisyiyah members in West Kalimantan including
introductory classes in psychology and law.

The head of Aisyiyah’s West Kalimantan office, Fauziah,
who like many Indonesians only uses one name, is eager to expand
collaboration with IOM. “Protecting victims of trafficking
fits our mandate perfectly,” she says.

Indonesia has emerged as a source of and transit point for tens
of thousands of women who are feeding the global expansion of this
latter day form of slavery.

“East Java province and the port city of Surabaya in
particular are major sources of victims both nationally and
trans-nationally,” said Kristin Dadey, head of IOM
Indonesia’s counter trafficking unit.

But IOM’s network of recovery centres for victims of
trafficking in Surabaya and elsewhere in Indonesia – the
first in Asia – are under threat from lack of funding and
face closure in early 2007 unless new donors are found.

“Over 1,300 victims, many bearing terrible physical and
psychological scars, have received free medical care at the centres
– the first step in their recovery - and their closure would
be a serious blow to our programme,” says Dadey.

For more information, please contact:

Paul Dillon

IOM Indonesia

Tel +62 8126988035

E-mail: "mailto:pdillon@iom.int">pdillon@iom.int