JAKARTA - A senior member of Indonesia's top legislative body called on lawmakers to revise the country's 19-year-old anti-trafficking law to close gaps that leave migrant workers exposed to newer forms of exploitation.
Lestari Moerdijat, deputy speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), said Law No. 21 of 2007 on the Eradication of Trafficking in Persons needs updating to strengthen protection and governance for Indonesian migrant workers.
“Comprehensive protection has to be strengthened and reach the grassroots. The anti-trafficking law also needs to be revised soon to strengthen the governance of Indonesian migrant workers,” she said in a written statement received in Jakarta on Wednesday.
She said the current law can't keep pace with how trafficking crime has evolved, describing it as shifting into white-collar and transnational cyber operations run through corporate structures.
Citing 2026 data from the International Organization for Migration, she said Indonesia has recorded 2,908 reported trafficking victims this year, most of them women and children.
She argued the law still focuses on punishing crimes after they happen rather than addressing their social roots, and said migrant worker governance needs coordinated cross-border cyber monitoring, since trafficking networks now recruit through algorithm-driven platforms that current tools aren't built to catch.
As an example, she pointed to a recent case in North Sulawesi, where 12 women were nearly sent to work in Cambodia and had reached the boarding stage before authorities intervened.
Willy Aditya, chairman of the House's Commission XIII, which handles legal and human rights affairs, said trafficking-driven exploitation persists even in wealthy countries and involves multiple layers of authority, from village officials to immigration and police.
“This has to be tackled through a joint movement by every citizen, and a strong anti-trafficking law as a tool to address trafficking crimes that keep happening,” he said.
The statement came at a Jakarta forum on migrant worker protection organized by NasDem's migrant worker desk, the party where Lestari also holds a leadership post. It follows similar calls from other lawmakers over the past several weeks, though no revision bill has yet advanced to a formal reading in the House.