To eliminate human trafficking using Bali shoreline as transit spot before sailing across to Australia, Australian Federal Police (AFP) granted various detection equipments to Bali Police. AFP has also granted similar equipment to four other Indonesian provincial police headquarters namely West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Lampung, and Jakarta.

Meanwhile Bali Police Headquarter has just completed an office of Provincial Task Force for Human Trafficking located at the same building as its call center. The task force will have 8 personnel taken from various related units. AFP will also have one staff assigned at the task force to expedite transfer of information. Among important functions of the task force is coordination with International Organization of Migration (IOM), Australian Consulate, and the immigration office.

In his briefing, Bali Police Commander Inspector General Hadiatmoko confirmed his commitment to improve cooperation with AFP in eliminating human trafficking. “This cooperation is aimed to human trafficking operations which use Indonesian territory as their transit spot. These operations create serious problems to each countries, and therefore whilst they are protected by IOM, we are doing our best to eliminate them instead”, Hadiatmoko said. He also said that granted equipment to detect human trafficking will also help in preventing terrorist operations in Indonesia.

Spokesperson of Bali Police Headquarter, Commissioner Gde Sugianyar said that so far AFP has frequently seized boats carrying illegal immigrant to enter Australia. Most of those boats were embarked from the shores of West and East Nusa Tenggara. Therefore Bali Police Headquarter set a task force to prevent incoming illegal immigrant mostly coming from Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran. In almost all cases Indonesia is not their final destination. They land in Indonesia to transit before heading to Australia.

The equipments granted by AFP include motorbikes, computers, handycams, digital cameras, binoculars, and various detectors. “With support of these new equipments we hopefully can monitor flow of illegal immigrants from Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran better”, Sugianyar said.

AFP Commander, Bruce Giles shared similar hopes. “I hope this cooperation will be able to increase effectiveness in preventing human trafficking”, Giles said.