Preventive Actions as New Strategy for Tackling Human Trafficking : Evidence from East Java

In the past decade, there has been a significant increase in transnational crime activities especially cases related to human trafficking in Indonesia. Human trafficking is considered as one of the most serious non-traditional threats in the country along with drugs trafficking and illegal fishing. Indonesian national government have already done several attempts in order to tackle human trafficking crimes within the country, but none of them has presented a significant impact. This paper focuses on the role of local government of East Java Province on their efforts to tackle human trafficking activities in the area. Due to the implementation of decentralization law in Indonesia, the local government in the province level has autonomous rights to conduct policy within their regions. This autonomous rights is also applicable for the policy in dealing with human traficking. Using 4P Paradigm (prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership), this present study is going to identify the pattern of human trafficking activities in East Java and then look at several efforts that have been made by East Java provincial government and then provide an assessment on whether the local government policy is effective to reduce the human trafficking activities in the region.