Indonesia: A Country Grappling with Migrant Protection at Home and Abroad (original) (raw)

2018, Migration Information Source

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country, has for decades been a major origin for labor migration, with its workers fanning out to locations in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. Home to a diverse array of cultures and situated along several major trading and transport routes, it has reluctantly found itself in the role of transit and destination country more recently. Though Indonesian policymakers have made progress on protecting migrant workers abroad, the country continues to face challenges associated with its competing migration identities, such as protection of trafficking victims and asylum seekers. Migration and mobility are intrinsic characteristics of the many Indonesian cultures that shape its population of 267 million people. The country is formed by a volcanic archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, differing significantly in size, topography, and weather patterns. As a result, a high degree of seasonal inter-island travel and more permanent internal migration have often been preconditions for advancement, prosperity, and sometimes survival in the Ring of Fire. This article explores historical and contemporary migration to, from, and through Indonesia, encompassing colonial-era movements, labor migration in the late 1900s and today, and the transiting asylum seekers who have tested regional governance and coordination.