Illegal Asylum Seekers through Sea and Exploitation of Indonesian Children Working on Ship to Australia

Indonesia is a strategic archipelagic country. It makes Indonesia as a transit point for asylum seekers and refugees to pursue their destination to Australia. Some of these asylum seekers do not apply for refugees’ status determination procedure through UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) for some reasons. They entry in Australia through sea illegally. On the other hand, the trafficking syndicates employ Indonesian children who work on a ship which bring asylum seeker to Australia. They arrive in Australia and do not realize that they break Australian Law for committing people smuggling crime. In the process of law, some of them identify as adults because lack of evidence regarding their age. Then, they are imprisoned in an adult Australian prison. However, in the appeal stage, they are found not guilty as children. Furthermore, Indonesian children have replacement in Indonesia and have submitted a lawsuit in Central Jakarta District Court to get the composition of their sentence in prison without committing a crime. The increasing number of asylum seekers/refugees immigrates to Indonesia raises its own problems and also the impact of their use illegal way to Australia. Therefore, the Australian and Indonesian Government should have responsibility toward build bilateral cooperation in order to resolve this problem by providing legal protection for children who are victims of trafficking syndicates and enforce the law for trafficking syndicates. Keywords—Illegal Asylum Seekers, Trafficking in Persons through Sea, Exploitation of Children, Responsibility of States