HEADLINE

Sari (not her real name), who lives in a small village in Sambas (West Kalimantan) is just like everyone else who wants a better life for themselves and their family. However, her journey to realize her dream took a darker turn. 

There are two categories of Indonesian migrant workers (PMI) -- official and illegal. The World Bank released a data in 2017 showing that there were 9 million Indonesians working abroad, but according to the Agency for the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BP2MI) only 4.6 million were officially registered as PMI. And of the 4.4 million were illegal workers, 90 percent were victims of crime syndicates and mafia. The majority of those illegal workers went to work in the Middle East and Malaysia. 

Article 3 of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (the Palermo Protocol) defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of another person, for the purpose of exploitation which shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery servitude or the removal of organs.” 

Twenty-five years of reformasi in Indonesia (1998-2023) still leaves much to be desired in regard to law enforcement, particularly corruption eradication. Indonesia’s war against corruption has ebbed and flowed over years. In January this year, antigraft NGO Transparency International (TI) released its latest global showing Indonesia’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) dropping to 34 from 38 a year prior. As a result, the country’s global ranking fell from 96 to 110 (out of 180 countries surveyed). 

Inflection point. That is perhaps the apt phrase to describe the current state of the ongoing corruption eradication drive in Indonesia. Not only because the government’s anticorruption performance is increasingly sluggish, but because the boundaries between public and private affairs are becoming blurrier. In the fields of administration, politics and law, the government is under greater pressure, especially after Reformasi, where an array of conflicts of interest in decision-making take place in plain view. Holding concurrent positions, public officials running private businesses, bribing judges to resolve court cases, to high-ranking police officer selling seized drugs to dealers are just some examples. This phenomenon signals that the democratic accountability of power is being severely disrupted. 

Good news for the people came at the start of the fasting month. The Government plans to distribute food assistance worth Rp 8.26 trillion over the next three months, aimed at suppressing inflation. There are at least three staple commodities that constitute the social aid program __ rice, eggs and chicken meat.

The recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVC) has captured the world’s attention, especially economic players in financial, banking and digital sectors. The bank, which served as a source of funding for start-ups and technology companies, was finally shut down after a bank run, when a large group of its panicked depositors withdrew their money at the same time. SVB had grown rapidly in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, but failed to quickly adapt to post-pandemic economic reality, marked by the Fed’s rapid, successive benchmark interest rate (Fed Fund Rate/FFR) hikes.

The Central Jakarta District Court ruling on Thursday (2/3) ordering the General Elections Commission (KPU) to postpone the 2024 General Election (GE2024) promptly sent a shockwave through the Indonesian political scene – and the public as well. The decision was issued in connection with a lawsuit filed on December 8, 2022 by a small and relatively unknown political player called “Prima Party”, challenging the KPU decision to disqualify it from contesting GE2024, as it did not pass the administrative verification stage. 

The national rice policy has recently become a widely-discussed topic, as the price of rice fluctuates unpredictably and the Government’s rice import plan sparks controversy. This is understandable, as rice has become a strategic commodity. From the early days after Indonesia gained its independence, through the regimes of Sukarno and Suharto and up until the Reformasi era, national rice policy has been continuously changing. Some viewed it as a less important policy while others made it a top priority. Whatever the policy direction is, rice remains influential, both politically and economically. Politically, it relates to the legitimacy of the Government. Economically, it is a key component which affects price stability and inflation, which ultimately will impact the performance of the national economy. In this article, we will examine the consequences of this issue, whether it is being neglected or if it is designated a focal issue by the Government.

The “cop murder” saga was finally concluded, with the disgraced former Chief of the Internal Affairs Division of the Indonesian National Police (Div Propam), Ferdy Sambo, sentenced to death over the premeditated homicide of his aide-de-camp Yosua Hutabarat (popularly known as “Brigadier J”). This entire drama must be accorded an appreciation.

Post-World War II, the philosophy of economic development leaned toward economic growth, as classical economists viewed that high-quality economic development was also associated with high economic expansion. Thus, during that period, economic development efforts were geared towards stimulating higher growth.