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II. Background

Child labor is widespread in Indonesia.  The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 4,201,452 children below the age of eighteen involved in potentially hazardous work; more than 1.5 million are girls.¹²  A 2002-2003 baseline survey conducted by the University of Indonesia and the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) (the child labor arm of the ILO) estimated that there were 2.6 million domestic workers in Indonesia out of which at minimum 688,132 (34.83 percent) were children; 93 percent of those were girls under the age of eighteen.¹³  In contrast, in 2001 the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 579,059 domestic workers out of which 152,184 (26.7 percent) were children.¹⁴  The ILO questioned the methodology of the government survey, concluding that the government’s figure underestimated the actual number of domestic workers in the country.¹⁵ 

Domestic Workers in Indonesia

Domestic work in Indonesia, and around the world, is performed largely by women and girls and is often considered a natural extension of women’s work in society, namely the maintenance of the home and family.  The work is situated in the private sphere and is unregulated and shielded from public scrutiny.  The ILO estimates that more girls under sixteen work in domestic service than in any other category of child labor worldwide.¹⁶  Because it is performed predominantly by women and girls, and is frequently seen as an extension of unpaid daily household work, domestic work is considered as unskilled and menial labor.¹⁷  Notably, domestic workers are commonly referred to as “pembantu”(helpers) and not “pekerja” (workers) by both the government and employers.  This description is convenient as it suggests that their labor is non-remunerative. 

Family members of domestic workers as well as suppliers of domestic workers Human Rights Watch spoke with indicated that domestic work is done predominantly by girls.  For instance, when we asked a family member of a domestic worker whether any boys in their family are domestics, the family member laughed and said, “No boys work as domestic workers . . . because the pay is too low to support a family;” instead they “work in the factory.”¹⁸  Similarly, an official from a domestic worker supplier agency told us, “Most here [agency] are girls.  But some boys come to our company.  We place them as drivers, security, [and] gardening.  Sometimes boys come, but they prefer to go to factories rather than homes.”¹⁹ 

In Indonesia, domestic service traditionally was not regarded as formal employment, but as an informal relationship between the employer and the domestic.²⁰  The remuneration for such service was typically accommodation, food, or a small monetary gift at Eid-ul-Fitr, rather than regular wages.²¹  In Javanese tradition, taking poor relatives into the household was known as the ngenger custom.  Under this tradition, young boys and girls would leave their villages to live with a prosperous uncle or aunt or acquaintance of the family on the premise that the children would be sent to school and would be taken care of.  In return, these children were expected to do household work.²²  Whatever may have been the case historically, current practices are a far cry from such romanticized notions.

Push and Pull Factors

The progressive urbanization of Indonesia has led to an increased demand for domestic workers by the middle class.  More young families are migrating to the cities and women continue to enter the formal workforce.  Demand has expanded in particular for girls under fifteen to assist in child rearing and household tasks.²³ 

The demand for children over adults is particularly high because children are cheaper and seen as easier to control than adults.²⁴ We were told by a domestic worker supplier agency that the agency supplies only children because there is a demand for children.²⁵  Labor agents told Human Rights Watch that employers prefer hiring children because they are “cheaper than adults” and “can be easily managed.”²⁶   The ILO-IPEC study on child domestic workers in Indonesia similarly found that adults command a higher salary even though the tasks they perform are the same.²⁷

NGOs, as well as an official from ILO-IPEC, told Human Rights Watch that migration of adults abroad also contributes to the demand for children in Indonesia.²⁸  The legal age for migration abroad is eighteen; wages tend to be higher and, thus, the work more desirable.²⁹  For example, Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore typically earn 220-280 Singapore dollars (U.S.$133-170) per month, in Malaysia about 350-450 ringgit (U.S.$98-118) per month, and in Hong Kong, the minimum wage for foreign domestic workers is 3270 Hong Kong dollars (U.S.$420), though many get paid less than half of that.³⁰  In comparison, domestic workers in Indonesia typically earn Rp. 300,000 (U.S.$33.33) a  month.³¹  Indonesia is a major supplier of migrant domestic workers to Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and East Asian countries.  According to the World Bank and the Indonesian government, in 2002 76 percent of 480,393 overseas workers from Indonesia were women and 94 percent of these women were employed as domestic workers in these countries.³²  Human Rights Watch spoke with some girls who said they wanted to become migrant domestic workers when they turned eighteen because they believed they would be paid better wages abroad than in Indonesia.³³ 

In addition to the pull of demand from employers, poverty and a lack of access to education push children into work.  Many poor families in rural areas are unable to meet their economic needs and rely on children to supplement the household income.³⁴  Moreover, the 1997-1998 economic crisis led to an increase in child labor in the urban areas, including in the unregulated informal sector.³⁵

Education expenses, such as school tuition and infrastructure fees (to pay for upkeep of school facilities), uniforms, books, and transportation, are an additional burden on poor families.  The United Nations Human Development Report 2004 on Indonesia (Human Development Report) notes that although a vast majority of children enroll in school, only about half complete nine years of basic education.³⁶  According to the report, around 18 percent of children drop out before completing primary school, while the rest do not enter or do not complete lower secondary school because of poverty, incidental fees, and expenses for uniforms and books, as well as the quality of education.³⁷ 

School fees have not been abolished in Indonesia.  Schools charge tuition and infrastructure fees.³⁸  Katarina Tomaševski, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, concluded in her 2002 examination of the education system in Indonesia that poverty and costs are the key obstacles to children’s access to education.³⁹  She further noted that schools’ reliance on parental financial contribution put “schools in poor communities at a disadvantage.”⁴⁰  Such fees are also used for maintenance of school facilities, which the Human Development Report noted are in a “decrepit state.”⁴¹ 

Both poverty and education costs thus push children to drop out of school and enter the informal sector where no specialized education is needed.  This in turn creates a next generation of workers confined to low-skill, low-paid jobs who, in turn, are less likely to be able to educate their own children. 

Recruitment of Children

Children are typically recruited from rural or poor urban areas to work as domestic workers in larger cities.  Human Rights Watch interviewed children who were recruited by other domestic workers, relatives, neighbors, friends, and labor agents.  An Atma Jaya University survey in the Jakarta area identified two types of domestic worker recruiters—formal and informal.⁴²  Under the formal method, a domestic worker supplier agency, pursuant to a 1993 local government regulation in Jakarta, may recruit domestic workers over the age of fifteen upon written permission from their parents.⁴³  The informal method of recruitment, on the other hand, involves vegetable vendors, small butchers, relatives, and other domestic workers, who recruit from their home villages.  They are a large source for recruiting child domestics, and are difficult to control.⁴⁴  An NGO working with child domestic workers similarly told us that such informal recruiters play a significant role in the recruitment process.⁴⁵

A survey carried out by an NGO in Yogyakarta found the following recruitment patterns in Central Java:  a villager may act as a local agent for prospective employers or outsider recruiters in exchange for a fee, or informal recruiters and employers may visit the village and recruit directly, sometimes with the local villager as an intermediary.⁴⁶

Recruiters have significant monetary incentive to recruit children for domestic work.  A labor agent in Jakarta informed us that she recruits thirteen children a month and is paid Rp.190,000 (U.S.$21.11) per child by the domestic worker supplier agency.⁴⁷  Thus, a labor agent could earn as much as U.S.$275 a month for recruiting thirteen children, and earn more than triple the minimum wage in Jakarta, which in 2004 was Rp.671,843 (U.S.$74.64).  A labor agency in Jakarta, on the other hand, is paid Rp.350,000 (U.S.$38.88) per child by an employer.  According to agency officials the agency usually houses one hundred girls per day waiting to be placed as domestic workers.⁴⁸ 

Human Rights Watch was allowed a short tour of a domestic worker supplier agency in Jakarta, but we were not allowed to interview most of the girls.  We saw several small, overcrowded rooms full of girls, a few older women, and some men.  The rooms had wooden platforms for sleeping and a communal kitchen.  While we were being shown the facilities, we saw four girls who appeared much younger than fifteen with bags at their feet—they had just arrived.  Each said that she was fifteen years old and would like a job in a supermarket.⁴⁹  We also observed a poster on the wall, which stated, “Things that make a good employer: (1) proper salary every month; (2) enough food; (3) if you’re sick, the employer takes you to the doctor.”

Vulnerability to Trafficking

Domestic workers’ exclusion from Indonesia’s labor law, combined with the lack of government regulation and monitoring of recruitment and working conditions, leaves child domestic workers highly susceptible to being trafficked into forced labor.  Child trafficking is a practice similar to slavery and is one of the worst forms of child labor, which governments have an affirmative obligation to prevent.⁵⁰ 

Child trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, forced labor, or slavery.⁵¹  Exploitation includes “at a minimum, the exploitation of or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”⁵²  Where children, as opposed to adults, are concerned, trafficking can exist in the absence of coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception.⁵³

The ILO considers a child to be trafficked into domestic service when she is “obliged to leave her . . . home village to go the city to find work and who is recruited into domestic service where the conditions are exploitative (for example, the child is ‘paid’ in food and lodging rather than receiving a wage).”⁵⁴  The ILO explains that even if the relocation element of trafficking is voluntarily, if the domestic service is exploitative and satisfies any of the criteria for the worst forms of child labor, then the child is considered to be trafficked, and the employers are traffickers under international law.⁵⁵