Two Indonesian women have been repatriated from China, bringing to light a suspected human trafficking ring involving financially desperate Indonesian women being tricked into working in China with the promise of a happily married life.
One of the women, Monika Normianti, shared with the media the tale of her 10 harrowing months in China after having just returned to Indonesia on Friday.
Accompanied by migrant rights advocacy groups at a press conference on Saturday, Monika, a resident of Pontianak, East Kalimantan, said she was approached by three mak comblang (local slang meaning matchmakers) who promised her a life of plenty with a wealthy husband from China. Lured by that prospect and further promise that she would be able to regularly send money to her family back home, Monika agreed to marry a Chinese man, who, she was told, earned IDR10 million (US$705) a month.
Monika said she suspected that her marriage documents were obtained in questionable ways — she wasn’t even present when an agent filed a letter certifying her marriage with a foreign spouse at her local civil registry office — but she ended up in China with her new husband and his parent not long after she met the mak comblang.
Monika says she didn’t even know where exactly she lived in China as nobody ever told her, only that she lived in an apartment building with at least three other Indonesian women with similar stories to hers. For 10 months, she says she endured hell in that apartment at the hands of her husband and in-laws.
“I was once stripped naked by my in-law because I did not want to have intercourse with my husband as I was menstruating. I also once slept outside without a blanket or a pillow during winter. My husband just stayed quiet,” Monika said as quoted by CNN Indonesia, while listing several other instances of abuse such as physical assault by her husband and being forced to do housework for hours without rest.
Monika ran away from her husband’s home and reported her abuse to the Hebei provincial police, who helped her get in touch with the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing and begin her repatriation process.
“I ran away because my father was dying in the hospital. But when I got back here (in Indonesia) he had already passed away,” she said.
Jaringan Buruh Migran (Migrant Workers Network), a coalition of 27 migrant rights groups in Indonesia, says that there may be up to 29 human trafficking victims like Monika in China, and only two of them — Monika included — have been repatriated so far. The group says the human trafficking network helps Chinese men find brides in Indonesia and sending them over to China to be exploited physically and sexually.
The Migrant Workers Network say they have notified the Foreign Ministry about the remaining 27 women, but they say the ministry notified them their hands are tied because the women are legally married to their Chinese husbands.
There have been no reports of any of the mak comblang or anyone in the suspected human trafficking ring being arrested so far.
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