I told my husband, the neighbourhood, all of them. I kept telling them like a crazy person. Until my husband was getting bored with my story. My husband said, “Don’t keep telling them about your stories, just keep silent” … So I just think [about] my employer, like crazy people. I couldn’t stop talking about it.
Trafficking experiences can also lead to the family left behind being taxed physically and psychologically. A woman’s absence due to trafficking can have a detrimental effect, particularly on those who are dependent on their economic and emotional support, namely children and aged parents.47 One woman returned home to her son, whom she described as skinny, in large part because her ex-husband did not provide any money to her parents to feed him while she was away. Another woman described problematic behaviour from her son while she was away and after her return, including skipping school and smoking: “[My husband] said that it was tough at home if I wasn’t around taking care of the children. He had a hard time parenting alone”. This is consistent with a study in Sri Lanka that found that two of every five left-behind children had mental disorders, and 30% of the left-behind children (aged six months to five years) were underweight or severely underweight.48 Children left behind by migrant mothers may suffer from psychosocial problems, including feelings of abandonment, sadness, despondence, despair, anger, lack of trust, low self-esteem, and inability to concentrate at school.49
Psychological impacts are especially prominent when regular communication is not maintained,50 as is common amongst trafficking victims. Most trafficked domestic workers had limited or no contact with their family while abroad. One study in Asia, including Indonesia, found carers with infrequent contact with the migrant parent were almost twice as likely to experience common mental disorders as those who had weekly contact; and stay-behind Indonesian fathers had significantly higher rates of common mental disorders than other men, likely due to difficult employment circumstances of their migrant wives and the need to redefine their gender role within the household.51 Another study in Indonesia noted various health issues amongst adults who stayed behind, including increased likelihood of psychosocial distress.52 This is akin to what many family members considered in this study faced as they struggled to make ends meet and to care for children left behind.
Feeling shame, being blamed
Women interviewed for this study commonly expressed feelings of shame. Causes of shame were multi-layered and intrinsically interwoven with social codes around being a good mother and daughter. Further, the dominant discursive framework of safe and successful migration in Indonesia reinforces a national feminine ideal of the sacrificial family-oriented citizen, and those who do not succeed are portrayed as ‘blameable’ migrants –i.e., immoral, foolish, and naïve, or ‘unlucky’.53 This brings a raft of reactions – from victims themselves, as well as from those around them – including shame and blame.
Some victims were ashamed at having failed at migration, coming home empty-handed. While new models of motherhood have evolved with the rise of female international migration from Indonesia, one essential aspect of being a mother who migrates for work is the ability to remit money. That is, mothers often redefine their role as ‘carer’ –shifting the focus from being physically present to their ability to provide financially for their children.54 This means that, for trafficked domestic workers, failure to earn money for their children (as a consequence of being trafficked) undermined their status as a ‘good mother’ (i.e., responsible for the care and well-being of their children), leading to feelings of shame. Said one woman:
I was embarrassed because the intention was to make money. All I got was just pain … there was this regret, I was there to earn money, but instead I spent money and made it a burden on my husband and others.
Such feelings were especially acute when others in the trafficking victim’s community had succeeded.
Another strategy for upholding the mother role is regular contact by phone or sending packages with presents and necessities.55 Long-distance contact contributes to preserving the parent-child relationship, and helps to mitigate feelings of abandonment during the mother’s absence.56 And, as noted above, it also has a positive impact on the mental well-being of those children left behind. However, most trafficked domestic workers struggled to maintain any contact with their children, with no or limited access to means of communication while exploited, further undermining their role as mother and contributing to their feelings of shame.
In addition, there are social codes in Indonesia around helping and caring for one’s parents, especially as they age. One woman described migrating out of obligation to help her father to get medical care:
My father cried. He did not want me to go abroad…. My father is sick now. When I was abroad, I thought much about him. My dream was to have him operated. I also wanted to be a success like my friends.
Shame played a role in victims’ decisions not to reveal the full nature or extent of their trafficking experiences to their family members. Some women felt ashamed of their migration ‘failure’, which they worried would lower them in the eyes of those they loved. Some women also feared that they would be looked down upon and blamed for things that happened while trafficked – having been raped, having been beaten, being humiliated, and being unable to look after themselves.
Fear of blame was a reasonable concern. Many trafficking victims were blamed, in part or to degrees, for not having succeeded at migration, describing reproach and accusations from different family members, including parents, spouses, children, and siblings. Some blame was about the economic burdens that failed migration placed on the family. One woman returned home very ill and went initially to stay with her sister, but only for one week, as her sister’s family felt she was an unfair burden:
[My sister] cried a lot [when I first arrived home]. She was so concerned of my condition, but I just stayed there for a week. I was forced to leave. […] She asked me to leave, “You better not stay long here […] You will give me many trouble [with my family]”.
Women were blamed by husbands and children who felt abandoned or neglected. Some family members were upset with the woman for being away during challenging times, such as an illness or death. One woman, whose husband died while she was abroad, described how her mother-in-law held her responsible for her son’s death:
The reaction from my mother-in-law was terrible. She lost her beloved son and she blamed it on me. When I first came back, her reaction was fine. But on the following days, she often treats me badly. Maybe she was very sad because her son died. She often gets mad at me. She said, “Because you went … my son got sick and died”.
One woman, who returned home with a child born of rape, was blamed for being raped while exploited abroad. While her husband and mother accepted her home, her ‘adultery’ was announced and condemned over the village loudspeaker by the local ustad (religious teacher). Her in-laws spoke against her, and her mother was taunted by the neighbours. Other women faced rumours and gossip within their families and communities that they had been trafficked, not as domestic workers, but were working abroad voluntarily in prostitution. One woman’s relative spread rumours in her family and home village about her being a prostitute, leading the woman’s mother to have a stroke and pass away shortly thereafter.
However, blame was not inevitable, and a number of returning women described the family’s fatalistic acceptance of their bad experiences, as illustrated by one woman:
I told my experience to my husband, my mother and the children and told them that I did not bring money. And after that all of us cried. Then my husband said, “It’s okay, fortunately, Alhamdulillah [Thank God], you are back home safely. The most important thing is that you are home now”.
When asked if her family was upset, she explained: “No [they were not]. We believe that it’s part of our destiny”. Moreover, blame was not irreparable, and negative reactions from family often changed over time. Initial recriminations often gave way to some level of
acceptance, at least within different segments of the family.
Blame was not one directional. Some trafficked women were upset with and blamed their family members for their behaviour and actions. One woman who was initially trafficked managed to escape and find work in the destination country and eventually remit money to support her mother and her children. She also sent money to her father and stepmother, but was angry at her stepmother’s greed and lack of appreciation: “[My step-mother] said that I was stingy, I came back from a foreign country but did not give anything. […] In fact I had already sent money to my father, much money”. Others expressed frustration with the failure of family at home to hold up their end of the migration agreement – to care for the children left behind, or to spend remittances in a responsible way.57 One woman returned home unwell from her trafficking situation, having been tortured and abused, to find her husband was having an affair with another woman in her absence. She spoke about what she had suffered while away, and blamed her husband for not having done his part:
I have to work hard there. Meanwhile my husband here was cheating and had an affair with another woman. You know, I almost died when I worked abroad. I really saved my money so that I could send some money to my husband. He only said that I have to be patient but do nothing and, even worse, he cheated on me! I was so sad, no one ever helped me.
Relationships were damaged or destroyed; managing fissures and fractures
Trafficked domestic workers were often away for long periods of time, with little to no contact with family, sometimes for years. Women who were allowed to contact their families were usually only permitted brief and infrequent telephone calls – every one to three months. Absence, compounded by lack of communication and contact, led to fissures and fractures within families and amongst family members. Much happened in the lives of both victims and their families during this separation while trafficked. Many family relationships were disrupted and even destroyed as a result.
Some women migrated when their children were very small, and so they returned home to children who barely knew them. One woman was away for years at a time, leaving home when her child was very young. She returned when her child was seven years old, and she described how he would not approach her: “He won’t talk to me. Won’t sleep with me. Won’t take a bath with me. Only with his grandmother. Because he doesn’t know me. ‘Go away, go away’, he said like that”.
Other women returned home to children who were upset with them for having left and resented their absence. In some cases, this was because children had been told bad things about their mother in her absence –e.g., that she had abandoned him/her; that she didn’t send money home; that she did not care about her child because she did not call home or send presents. One woman, when she was widowed, had migrated multiple times to support her children, but her absence had caused much damage in her relationship with her children, and she described anger and resentment from them:
[the youngest boy] said like this to me, “Why you do not take care of me, mother?” How can [he say] that I did not take care of him? Maybe he knew that I left him to work abroad. I left him so that he can eat and continue go to school. Until one day my eldest son came to me and discussed about that … My eldest son told me, “We did not need your money, we needed your attention”.
Relationships with spouses were also disrupted and even destroyed during trafficking.58 One
woman described being out of contact with her husband for almost two years and returning home to learn that he had had an affair:
When I was [trafficked], I did not contact my husband for one and a half years. When I came home he informed me that he had another woman. He said, “Better you know directly from me, than know from others”. I was hurt.
Damage to marriages was not easily resolved, and she explained that even now, three years after her return, she still felt the wounds of his betrayal: “I am still hurt until now”.
In return, some husbands described being hurt by what they experienced at the time as abandonment by their wives. Some expressed confusion and hurt at not having been contacted by their wives while away. Others described their frustration around the challenges of sole parenting in their wife’s absence and being solely responsible for the household. Still others spoke about the strain and stress of trying to raise and earn enough money to support their children without support from their migrant (albeit trafficked) wife.
In some cases, family tragedy occurred while the woman was away, having devastating consequences. One woman, married with three sons, was widowed while she was working abroad – she managed to negotiate her return home with her employer. Upon arrival, she learned that her father had also died during her absence. Her situation was further complicated by the reaction of her mother-in-law after her return, and by her eventual decision to remarry:
When she knew that I would get married, my mother-in-law was angry too and I was not allowed to stay at her house any longer. [She said], “Don’t stay here anymore, just think about your new husband, go!” All I could do was cry. That’s my house. If I go out from that house, where? I was also concerned about my children. They need a parent’s attention. I left them for 20 months but after I came back I was not allowed to stay with them. I often cry.
This is not to say that fissures and fractions are inevitable or irreparable. A number of trafficked women described how, over time, it was possible to heal wounds and damage in relationships. But this often took time, and was a far from an easy process.
Conclusion
Indonesian women trafficked as domestic workers bore substantial scars and burdens as a result of their trafficking experiences. They suffered in terms of their physical and mental well-being, their economic situation, feelings of blame and responsibility for their trafficking and ‘failed migration’, and in terms of the damaged relationships with their loved ones. While it is essential to consider the impact of these individual costs on the reintegration process, it is as critical to take into account the perspectives and experiences of the families to whom trafficked persons return to live. Trafficking exploitation also took a heavy toll on the family members of Indonesian women trafficked as domestic workers: their children, spouses, parents, siblings, and other relatives. The families of trafficked domestic workers interviewed for this study were profoundly and, in some cases, irreparably affected by the trafficking of their family members. The impacts were myriad – economic, physical, psychological, and interpersonal – and these families’ members also struggled to come to terms with this experience and the impact it had on their lives and families.
The challenges and vulnerabilities discussed above are seldom self-standing. Trafficked persons and their families faced most or all of these issues and tensions, to different degrees and at different stages. These issues and vulnerabilities were often mutually reinforcing and coterminous. That is, financial difficulties commonly increased conflict and tensions in the family, including feelings of shame and blame. Equally, being physically or psychologically unwell often meant being unable to work, which amplified economic problems. This highlights the need to better understand the family environment to which trafficked persons return in all of its complexity, complications, and messiness. It also highlights that taking into account family dynamics and relationships in the design of reintegration responses can contribute substantially to more efficient and appropriate assistance and protection. Family members play a crucial role in victims’ lives after trafficking and, as such, are often central to whether the victim successfully reintegrates or faces serious obstacles in her life after trafficking. Failure to take the trafficking victim and her family into account in any discussion or intervention misses an important, indeed pivotal, factor in the reintegration process itself.
Notes
1 This chapter was drafted in the framework of the NEXUS Institute’s research on reintegration in Indonesia, Protecting the unassisted and underserved, generously funded by the US Department of State, under the
terms of Grant No S-SGTIP-11-GR-0044. It is part of a larger research project on reintegration after trafficking in Indonesia. Other studies in the project include: ‘Going Home: Challenges in the reintegration of trafficking victims in Indonesia’, ‘Our Lives: Vulnerability and resilience among trafficking victims in Indonesia’ and ‘Moving on: Family and community reintegration amongst Indonesian trafficking victims’. Sincere thanks are to the research team – Thaufiek Zulbahary and Suarni Daeng Caya – for their tireless work in interviewing trafficked persons in villages throughout West Java, and to Laura S. Johnson, Pattarin Wimolpitayarat, and Sheila Berman for their assistance and support to the research team. Thanks also to Stephen Warnath for his oversight of the project and input into the research. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of State.
2 This article uses the definition of human trafficking found in the Palermo Protocol, the most internationally recognised definition. For a definition of trafficking in Indonesia, please see: Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 21 Year 2007 on the Eradication of the Criminal Act of Trafficking in Persons, art. 1.
3 We conducted repeat interviews with 31 of the 39 respondents. In five instances we were unable to conduct the second interview due to time and resource constraints, and we were unable to contact two others (by phone or in the village) to conduct a repeat interview. One respondent declined to be re-interviewed, as she did not want to talk about her experience a second time.
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