Summary

Arif B. was just 15 years old in early 2011 when he left Afghanistan to travel to Indonesia by himself.He borrowed US$7,000 to pay smugglers to bring him to Jakarta. From there, he made his way to Banjarmasin, a town in South Kalimantan, and boarded another smuggler’s boat to take him on what he hoped would be his final destination: Australia.

The crossing from Banjarmasin to the nearest Australian territory covers approximately 700 miles, and is perilous and often fatal, plied by unseaworthy vessels that lack sufficient navigation equipment, food, or fuel. Seven days into the 15-day journey, Arif’s boat went into distress. A passing cargo ship picked up the passengers, including Arif, and took them to the Indonesian police, who ignored the fact that Arif was a child traveling alone, half a world away from his parents. Immigration officials held the passengers overnight in an informal detention facility in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, before transferring them to the Balikpapan Immigration Detention Center (IDC), some 60 miles away.

Arif remained at Balikpapan IDC for 50 days, confined to a cell with unrelated adults for 22 hours each day. When he tried to escape, one day after arriving at Balikpapan, the guards beat him. He told Human Rights Watch,

That day I was beaten up very roughly…. There were eight or nine people beating me, most were guards and there was one person from the outside. They hurt my shoulder, my ear, my back. I was beaten with one of the other people who was caught. It was in the courtyard, everyone was there.... They saw and watched. Including one family from Iran, with a seven-year-old boy. He was watching too.

After 50 days, Arif was taken to Kalideres IDC near the capital Jakarta, one of Indonesia’s largest of the 12 or so IDCs nationwide. There, he bribed an immigration official with $400 to secure his release.

Arif tried to make the boat crossing to Australia again in December 2011. Again, his boat went into distress, but this time the consequences were fatal. Arif reports that hundreds of his fellow passengers died, and he himself nearly drowned:

We spent eight hours on the boat before it was in trouble, then three nights floating in the boat while it was sinking down.... For three days and nights, no water and food. We kept climbing higher and higher as the boat was sinking.

After Arif was rescued, Indonesian authorities brought him back to Jakarta, and all but turned their back on him. Now 17, he lives in a shelter that a non-governmental organization (NGO) runs near Jakarta for unaccompanied migrant children. Although Arif has paperwork certifying that he is a refugee from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, the Indonesian government does not recognize him as in the country legally. The government does not provide guardianship or other assistance to unaccompanied boys like Arif, and he cannot work legally, or move freely around the country. He hopes to be resettled to Australia, but in the meantime has no school to go to, and claims he still feels the psychological trauma of his flight, detention, and near-drowning.

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A Growing Problem

Despite his hardships, Arif is now one of the luckier ones: he has a place in a shelter and refugee status from UNHCR. Many other migrant children in Indonesia—both those traveling with parents or other guardians, and those traveling alone—are still detained, abused, and neglected.

Each year, a growing number of asylum seekers—primarily from Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Burma— enter Indonesia in search of safer lives. At the end of February 2013, there were 9,226 refugees and asylum seekers in UNHCR’s active caseload in Indonesia, a 2,000 percent increase since 2008. 

Almost 2,000 asylum-seeking and refugee children were in Indonesia as of March 2013.During the year 2012, 1,178 unaccompanied children entered Indonesia, the highest number in recent years.The real number of migrant children is likely to be far higher since many migrants and asylum seekers—including children—do not register with UNHCR, preferring to remain out of sight and try to make their way to Australia.

While many migrants and asylum-seeking children, like Arif, may try to reach Australia, they often spend months or years caught in Indonesia. This report focuses on the thousands of children—accompanied and unaccompanied—who enter Indonesia every year, and it documents the abusive conditions and interminable waits children face during the months and years they spend in limbo in Indonesia.

Thousands Detained and Abused

Migrant children—both accompanied and unaccompanied—are arbitrarily detained in terrible conditions for months or years, without knowing how long they will be held. Of the 102 migrants interviewed by Human Rights Watch, 82 were or had been detained. Of the 42 children covered in our research, all but 7 of them were or had been detained. Safia A., an Afghan refugee, was held with her husband and three daughters aged 10, 6, and 4 years old in a cell at Pekanbaru IDC for a year: “My children asked and asked, ‘When can we go outside?’ But … we have no answers for them.”

Indonesian law permits immigration detention for up to 10 years without judicial review. As a result, many children remain in detention for years, facing an array of abuses including physical violence from immigration officials, bribery and confiscation of property, and lack of basic necessities. The impact of prolonged, indefinite immigration detention is particularly severe for children, many of whom experience post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.

The detention centers are overcrowded, unsanitary, and can flood during the rainy season. One child with whom we spoke said there was one toilet for thirty-seven people when he was detained at Pontianak IDC for seven-and-a-half months. Interviewees complained that the food in the detention centers is dirty and lacks the nutrition that young children need. Some migrants and asylum seekers said they were not allowed outdoors for weeks or months. “How can I explain what it’s like when we went out?” said 17-year-old Faizullah A., who was kept inside for five months. “We were like the wild, running all around. We were thinking we were alive again.”

Most unaccompanied children—like Arif and Faizullah—are detained with unrelated adults at risk of violence and exploitation. Sher K., an adult asylum seeker, was detained at Kalideres IDC:

There were 20 or 30 unaccompanied minors… Whenever the boys talked on the phone with their families, they would cry. The boys cried all the time. They were the most powerless in there. They would get attacked.

Both adults and children described guards kicking, punching, and slapping them or other detainees. Some reported that guards tied up or gagged detainees, beat them with sticks, burned them with cigarettes, and administered electric shocks. For instance, Sher K. was beaten after trying to escape:

Three shifts of guards, they would each come with sticks and knives and hit us. Six or seven guards would come and beat us for fun. It lasted for three days, every day, all day. They did it for fun. One friend of mine … had a broken arm. My face was black and blue. My kidney was damaged for a month—it was bad—from the beating.

Several unaccompanied boys told Human Rights Watch that Indonesian immigration guards beat them in detention. In another case, parents said immigration guards forced their children, including their four year old and six year old, to watch guards beat other migrants.

The ill-treatment can be fatal. In February 2012, Taqi Naroye, a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker was beaten to death in Pontianak IDC after attempting to escape. Police had returned him to the facility in good health. The next day, he was delivered, dead, to the local hospital. According to our interviews, other migrants witnessed his beating, including one unaccompanied migrant child who was then beaten himself.

Accountability for abuses is generally lacking. Apart from some minor changes at Pontianak, there has been little accountability for Naroye’s death. There has been no nationwide review of physical abuse in detention, and there are no comprehensive procedures in place to train immigration staff or provide a complaints mechanism for detainees. Nor does the immigration detention system have published regulations establishing clear consequences for violations of detainees’ rights.

No Refuge, no Protection

Despite the growing numbers of migrant children, Indonesia fails to respond to their needs. It does not provide access to asylum for migrant children or their families and leaves unaccompanied migrant children alone, unprotected, and without access to services.

Indonesia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol, and does not have adequate domestic asylum laws. As a result, processing asylum applications falls to UNHCR, which provides certificates recognizing individuals and families as refugees. Yet UNHCR’s process comes with many delays, leaving hundreds of migrant children in detention, and these certificates carry little official weight with the Indonesian government.

Indonesia does nothing to assist unaccompanied children, some of the most vulnerable asylum seekers. Though Indonesia is obliged, due to its ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to provide unaccompanied children with guardians, it has neglected to assign that role to any government entity. Without guardianship, some children remain in detention, unable to be released without anyone to care for them.

Outside detention, only a handful of unaccompanied children, like Arif, have any assistance. There are places in shelters for perhaps 140 children at any time. Others still live on the street or in crowded private accommodation with other migrants, at risk of exploitation, destitution, and re-arrest. None receives the care to which they are entitled by law from the Indonesian government.

Even with recognition from UNHCR, migrant children—whether accompanied or unaccompanied—have no viable future in Indonesia. They have no legal status under Indonesian law, cannot work, and have limited access to education. Constantly vulnerable to arrest or rearrest for violating these or other rules, refugees are reluctant to seek police protection should they become victims of crimes. Only a small minority (just 247 people in 2012) are resettled to third countries.

Given this toxic limbo, it is no wonder that migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees frequently choose to take smugglers’ boats to Australia, despite the risks posed by these journeys. One Afghan father explained, “It’s taking years, and people’s families are back home, needing money. At least on the boats, you know your fate in 36 hours, in 24 hours.”[1]

Role of the Indonesian, Australian Governments

Indonesia bears primary responsibility for its appalling treatment of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. However, Australia has pursued a strategy of immigration enforcement first, refugee protection second which leave migrants with few options other than to risk boat journeys. It has assisted the Indonesian government in constructing new immigration detention facilities, and Australia supports UNHCR and IOM operations in Indonesia, including some inside the detention centers.

In August 2012, Australia reinstated the much-denounced “Pacific Solution,” which sends migrants to offshore facilities in Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, for processing of their asylum claims, which should be heard in Australia itself. Australia claims that such measures help to deter irregular boat migration, yet in the months after the Pacific Solution was reinstated, significant numbers of boats continued to arrive in Australian territory.

While Australia and Indonesia do have the right to control irregular immigration into their countries, they must do so in a way that respects children’s rights and provides protection for some of the most vulnerable new arrivals. Both Australia and Indonesia should prioritize children’s rights above immigration enforcement, so that children receive appropriate protection and care. Children like Arif B., who show great courage and resilience in journeying far from home, deserve the chance to have a meaningful future.