Jakarta, Suara Indonesia News - The House of Representatives (DPR) plans to complete deliberations for the ratification of the international protocol against human trafficking before its term expires in 2009, a legislator said.
"We expect to finish discussions to ratify the protocol next January or February, 2009," said Slamet Effendi Yusuf, chairman of a House special committee handling a bill on ratification of the Protocol Against Migrant Smuggling Through Land, Water and Air to supplement the United Nations Convention Against Organized Transnational Crime, at the DPR building here Thursday.
Yusuf, a legislator representing the Golkar Party, said it was importance for Indonesia to ratify the protocol because transnational human trafficking was a criminal activity that was increasing at an alarming rate.
He said basically migration from one country to another was the rights of everybody. However, since there were state borders and each country had its own immigration procedures, anybody wishing to cross a country`s border must follow procedures prescribed by laws.
With the ratification of the protocol, Indonesian citizens would be better protected from being smuggled out of the country or victimized by other criminal acts by people seeking financial profit, he said.
He said people should also be made aware of a new practice in which people were smuggled abroad using citizenship documents belonging to dead persons.
"People die but their deaths are not reported to the authorities. Then, the dead people`s documents are used by someone else to smuggle other people to certain countries," he said.
The protocol needed ratifying in a bid to uphold the supremacy of the law in Indonesia as well as to protect the rights of citizen and to ensure the country`s sovereignty, he said.
The protocol was signed in Palermo, Italy, in November 15, 2000 and entered into force on September 29, 2003.
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