II. Methodology

Since 2004, Human Rights Watch has interviewed more than 200 people in Indonesia on the issue of child domestic workers. We have made field investigations in Java and Sumatra in the urban areas of Bandung, Bekasi, Depok, Jakarta, Medan, Pamulang, Semarang, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and in two rural areas where child domestics are recruited, one outside Medan, and another outside Yogyakarta. We have spoken with 78 current or former child domestic workers age 11 and older.

On our most recent visit, in July 2008, Human Rights Watch visited Bandung, Bekasi, Depok, Jakarta, and Yogyakarta. We interviewed more than 90 people, including 21 current child domestic workers. All of the child domestic workers we interviewed were girls; the youngest girls were 13 years old, and the earliest that they had begun working as domestic workers was from age 11. We also interviewed an additional 13 former domestic workers about their experiences while they were still children.

We met with 19 representatives of non-governmental organizations or civil society groups; we have also been in email contact with non-governmental organizations based in Aceh and Cirebon. In addition, we spoke with one labor law professor and with representatives from the Jakarta office of the International Labour Organization. We talked with eight individuals from domestic worker recruitment and placement agencies; five of these conversations were held over the telephone anonymously either under the pretence of being a potential employer or potential child employee in order to better verify and evaluate the information provided by these agencies to these target groups. We also interviewed four individuals who work as recruiters of child domestic workers; one worked for an official agency, and the other three were transient vegetable vendors who recruited girls for some of the housewives with whom they trade. Human Rights Watch also made overt visits to three agencies that supply child domestic workers.

We met with three elected politicians and an additional 20 government officials, including representatives from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the Labor Division of the Ministry of Women's Empowerment, the Children's Division of the Ministry of Women's Empowerment, the program on child labor in the Ministry of Manpower, the Legal Bureau of the Ministry of Manpower, the Chief Prosecutor, the Jakarta Manpower  Agency, the Yogyakarta Manpower Agency, the Mayor of Yogyakarta, the Chair of the Yogyakarta city legislature, the Chair of the Special Committee on the drafting of the Manpower Bill in Yogyakarta city legislature, the National Police, the Jakarta Police, and the Yogyakarta police.

Interviews were conducted either directly in English or in Bahasa Indonesia, or through the use of an interpreter.

Pseudonyms are used for all current and former child domestic workers quoted in this report.

In this report, the word "child" refers to anyone under the age of 18. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states: "For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."[1] Although Indonesian law offers inconsistent definitions for majority, both Indonesia's Child Protection Act and Manpower Act also define a child as being a person under the age of 18.[2]