EFFECT OF SELECTED INSECTICIDE ON WHITEFLY (Bemisia tabaci) INFESTING BRINJAL PLANTS 173 AGRICULTURAL LAND CONVERSION AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN NORTHERN JAVA ISLAND, INDONESIA Af Sigit Rochadia Siti Sadiyatunnimahb Kamaruddin Salimc a,cDepartment of Sociology, Universitas Nasional, Pasar Minggu South Jakarta, Indonesia. bDepartment of Political Science, Universitas Nasional, Pasar Minggu South Jakarta, Indonesia.  af.rochadi@civitas.unas.ac.id (Corresponding author) Article History ABSTRACT Received: 24 March 2022 Revised: 4 July 2022 Accepted: 15 July 2022 Published: 2 August 2022 Keywords Agricultural land conversion Labor trafficking Sex trafficking Informal sector Family economy Vulnerability Floating mass. This study examines human trafficking, its causes, and the survival abilities of victims using qualitative interpretive methods and thematic data analysis. Previous studies have not linked human trafficking with agricultural land conversion; however, in Indonesia, this problem is mainly caused by agricultural land conversion, which resulted in a floating mass comprising farmers and their families when this process was not carried out carefully, involving local officials and capital owners. The cooperation between the two forces was assisted by field operators who suppressed landowners in various ways. The owners of large pieces of land managed to reinvest the money from the sale of the land. On the other hand, owners of less than 0.5 hectares tended to share the proceeds from the sale of their land with relatives, as a provision for finding work in other cities or countries. Consequently, they are easily persuaded by the promises of brokers to be trafficked as plantation or sex workers. There are no significant differences in the characteristics of labor and sex trafficking victims. For instance, they both come from economically unstable families with little education. The former farmers do not participate in the industrial sector but work in the informal sector with long working hours and low wages. Nevertheless, they act as the backbone of the family's economy. Therefore, agricultural land conversion policies in developing countries should protect farmers from poverty and vulnerability. Contribution/Originality: This study investigates the impact of poorly planned agricultural land conversion. Policies are needed to protect farmers before the conversion of agricultural land. DOI: 10.55493/5005.v12i3.4563 ISSN(P): 2304-1455/ ISSN(E): 2224-4433 How to cite: Af Sigit Rochadi --- Siti Sadiyatunnimah --- Kamaruddin Salim (2022). Agricultural Land Conversion and Human Trafficking in Northern Java Island, Indonesia. Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3), 173-181. 10.55493/5005.v12i3.4563 © 2022 Asian Economic and Social Society. All rights reserved. 1. INTRODUCTION In the current era of globalization, human trafficking is increasing due to advances in the fields of communication technology, information, and transportation, as well as the striking income inequality between countries. Sweileh (2018) examined 2,044 studies of trafficking published in Scopus-indexed international journals. The results showed that 37.7 percent of studies focused on sex trafficking, 30 percent on slavery or forced labor, and 9.7 percent on child trafficking. Studies in developed countries rarely focused on the globally increasing labor trade phenomenon. Most previous studies were conducted in the United States and Western Europe, while regions with a high prevalence of labor trafficking received less attention (Bonilla & Mo, 2019; Durisin & van der Meulen, 2021; Sweileh, 2018; Tallmadge & Gitter, 2018; Twis, 2020). Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development Volume 12, Issue 3 (2022): 173-181. http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5005 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6815-5779 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5099-5219 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0083-1547 http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5005 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 174 The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which aims to promote humane and beneficial migration, reported 258 million international migrants in 2018. By 2020, this number had increased to 280.6 million.1 The migration process involves recruitment, placement, and transportation to repatriation. Each of these stages creates opportunities for acts of violence and human trafficking. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation, the victims of modern slavery, forced labor, and forced marriage are estimated at 40.3 million, 24.9 million, and 15.4 million, respectively. Of these, 71 percent are female, and 50 percent are children (International Labor Organization & Walk Free Foundation, 2017). In 2016, 5.9 in every 1000 adults were victims of modern slavery, and 4.4 in every 1000 children. Human trafficking also still occurs in developed countries. Trafficking rates are predicted to be higher in countries whose populations mainly comprise immigrants, as well as in countries with access to the sea and with low per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and high unemployment rates (Tallmadge & Gitter, 2018). Most counties have committed to slavery and human trafficking education, including those of Southeast Asia. However, little progress has been made in combating human trafficking, slavery, and sexual exploitation in this region. The Philippines was once a hot spot for child sexual exploitation, with around 800,000 children victimized in 2019. This number increased by 2.64 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic (Gill, 2021). According to the Global Slavery Index, Thailand is home to 610,000 victims of modern slavery, of which more than 60 percent are victims of sexual exploitation. Although some enslaved people are Thai, most came from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Furthermore, the data shows that 8.88 in every 1000 residents live in slavery. Of every 1000 people, 51.1 are left vulnerable by the government’s inadequate efforts toward slavery eradication.2 Slavery and forced labor are not new to the era of globalization. Historians explain that sugar, cotton, palm oil, and other Southeast Asian commodities that sold well on European markets in the early 1800s were produced by slaves (Engerman, 1983). The slavery system was applied on plantations and in other areas of life, including the sexual exploitation of females. The number of enslaved people in the mid-19th century is estimated at 567,000 to 806,000 (Bosma, 2020). When European colonizers occupied the Southeast Asian region, workers were sent to other countries to produce goods to meet the demands of the global market. An example was the forced transportation of labor from Java to Suriname, South Africa, and New Caledonia. Previous studies have not linked trafficking with changes in the function of agricultural lands. Rapid industrialization in developing countries is turning agricultural land into housing, factories, and offices, reducing labor absorption. Farmers are forced to shift to jobs in non-agricultural sectors because their low education level and inexperience hamper their job mobility, resulting in a floating mass. As a result, they easily fall victim to labor brokers looking for prospective workers for sale to other countries. In Indonesia, agricultural land conversion is caused by rapid industrialization. Urbanization in the suburbs of the nation's capital is rapidly turning agricultural land into housing and offices. According to Mulyani, Kuncoro, Nursyamsi, and Agus (2016), the rate of paddy field conversion was 12,347 hectares per year or 0.209 percent between 2000 and 2015. The biggest change occurred in West Java Province, with an average annual loss of 3,662 hectares or 0.353 percent. Land conversion studies mainly focus on irrigated rice fields; they have documented a decrease from 8.1 million hectares in 2014 to 7.1 million in 2018 – 250 thousand hectares/year (Ministry of Agriculture, 2019). Hidayat, Ismail, and Ekayani (2017) found that 1 hectare of rice fields takes 197.2 working days in a year. Thus, it takes 49,300,000 working days to convert 250,000 hectares of rice fields each year. When disaggregated between men and women, the number of lost workdays is 27,350,000 and 31,350,000 for men and women, respectively. The wages received for 1 working day are 4.49 USD and 3.36 USD for men and women, respectively. Assuming the demand for labor in the rice fields remains constant every year, the economic loss caused by lost employment in the agricultural sector is 912.7 USD/ha/year. This leads to poverty, unemployment, and urbanization in areas where agricultural land conversion occurs. Agricultural land is rapidly converted in any country experiencing industrialization. Similar conversion occurred in China and South Korea, which grew into major industrial countries in Asia (Fu, Xu, & Junfu, 2019; TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, 2013). According to Fu et al. (2019), land conversion for industrialization and urban development in China was misallocated and not well-targeted. Similarly, the emergence of an authoritarian populist regime in Hungary and weak public control resulted in uncontrolled land grabbing in strategic locations (Gonda, 2019). Agricultural land conversion in Romania changed the agrarian structure, threatening the sustainability of the agricultural sector. Consequently, Romania faces more complicated agrarian problems than other Eastern European countries (Burja, Tamas-Szora, & Dobra, 2020). Agricultural land conversion also creates conflicts between investors and landowners. The government sometimes triggers land conflicts, but it also defends the environment and farmers' land. The impacts of land conflicts are often detrimental to smallholders and lead to unemployment (Dell’Angelo, D’odorico, Rulli, & Marchand, 2017; Marks, Sirithet, Rakyuttitham, Wulandari, & Chomchan, 2015; Syahyuti, 2018). According to Tallmadge and Gitter (2018), high unemployment rates and low GDP are the main causes of trafficking. In the two districts experiencing rapid industrialization in northern Java, the unemployment rate is above the national average. In 2020, the open unemployment in Karawang and Subang was 9.68 percent and 8.68 percent, respectively. In 2021, the rate rose to 11.52 percent for Karawang and 9.48 percent for Subang. The average national open unemployment rate for the 2019-2021 period was 5.28 percent (BPS, 2020). This study assumes that the high open unemployment rate in northern Java is caused by industrialization leading to agricultural land conversion. Job opportunities in the non-agricultural sector are filled by migrants with higher levels of education and skills. 1 https://www.migrationdataportal.org/international-data?i=stock_abs_&t=2020 accessed on November 5, 2021 at 13:45 Jakarta time. 2 https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/maps/ accessed on December 23, 2021, at 17:23. https://www.migrationdataportal.org/international-data?i=stock_abs_&t=2020 https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/maps/ Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 175 This study aims to explain the relationship between agricultural land conversion and the trade in labor and women on the northern island of Java, Indonesia, a rice-producing area. The analysis is useful for newly industrialized and developing countries because agricultural land conversion and trade in labor and women are common phenomena in countries experiencing an oversupply of labor. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Agricultural land conversion marks a global agrarian transformation in which transnational corporations play a key role (Borras Jr, Hall, Scoones, White, & Wolford, 2011; Borras et al., 2019; Dell'Angelo et al., 2021; Dell’Angelo et al., 2017). It involves violence and coercion toward small farmers by the state apparatus and capital owners and changes in the function of extensive amounts of land. Consequently, studies refer to this phenomenon as land grabbing (Dell'Angelo. et al., 2021; Dell’Angelo et al., 2017; Gellert, 2015; Gonda, 2019; Marks et al., 2015; Visser, Mamonova, & Spoor, 2012). Recent global land grabs have been catalyzed by the expansion of transnational corporations at the expense of common interests. The groups most disadvantaged are smallholders, as shown by Nguyen in Vietnam (Nguyen, Tran, Bui, Man, & Walter, 2016; Nguyen, 2021) and Gonda in Hungary (Gonda, 2019). Moreover, the benefits received by farmers are lower than those received by land brokers and state administrators. Farmers face various difficulties shifting to jobs with higher incomes (Borras et al., 2019; Rondhi, Pratiwi, Handini, Sunartomo, & Budiman, 2018; Syahyuti, 2018). Globalization and massive corporate investment in developing countries are external forces that drive agricultural land conversion. The internal driving force is the policy of mass land certification (Rochadi, 2018). Governments of developing countries play a role in creating the conditions for land conversion through industrialization policies. Furthermore, many brokers and local officials aware of plans to change land use seek to profit from price increases. Farmers who are against selling their land succumb to pressure from various parties, as seen in Southeast Asia in recent decades (Marks et al., 2015). In the study locations, the Karawang and Subang districts, agricultural land is undergoing rapid conversion. Although Presidential Regulation no. 59 of 2019 concerning the Control of Agricultural Land Transfer was issued, it did not address the need for industrial and residential land. In the Karawang and Subang districts, 1,916 hectares and 797 hectares of land, respectively, were converted between 2014 and 2018 (Ministry of Agriculture, 2019). Hidayat et al. (2017) found that the loss of employment opportunities in the agricultural sector in Karawang and Subang amounted to 534461 working days in the last four years. Without land, farmers lose their source of income, resulting in a floating mass. Therefore, they shift professions and trade, work in factories, or seek employment in cities and abroad, where they become targets of labor and sex trafficking. Although education about the dangers of trafficking has been conducted in villages, it has not defeated the traffickers. Most victims go to traffickers to seek jobs, meaning that the root of the problem is the farmers’ need for employment. The case of Romanian farmers shows that structural factors make farmers vulnerable to trafficking (Palumbo & Sciurba, 2015). The dark market and economic pressures make them targets of exploitation, sexual harassment, and trafficking. In Italy, the agricultural and domestic sectors are characterized by limited basic services, precarious work without contracts, and minimal wages (Palumbo, 2016). This situation leads directly to exploitation and trafficking. Hee-Soon (2019) came to the same conclusions when studying the trafficking of North Korean women in China. They come from farming families under economic pressure, migrate to China, and become victims of human trafficking. They experience forced labor and marriage and sexual exploitation because they have no other choice. The driving force to leave the village is as great as the attraction from outside, conveyed by persuasive people with capital, information, and social networks. Former farmers and young people unable to find work leave the village for cities or other countries that promise jobs. The main motivation for migration is thus to find work and improve the living standards of their families. 3. METHOD This study used an interpretive paradigm to explore the victims’ experiences and perspectives to better understand the process of labor and sex trafficking. The paradigm helps researchers participate in the lives of the victims (Frechette, Bitzas, Aubry, Kilpatrick, & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2020). This exploratory study type was chosen because there is no certainty about the underlying causes of labor and sex trafficking. The method was proposed by Neuman (2011) to help increase understanding of human trafficking. This research partnered with the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU) Karawang and Subang branches to identify victims of trafficking. IMWU has more than 21 years of experience helping and empowering victims of labor trafficking. Although trafficking includes slavery, sexual exploitation, organ trafficking, and forced labor, this study only focused on trade in forced labor and females for sex work. The selected male informants were aged over 18 years, had sold their land, been trafficked to other countries, and returned to their village. The informants that were sex trafficking victims were females aged over 17 years; their father or mother had sold their land or rice fields, and they had been trafficked to big cities or small towns. Informants were referred to as victims of human trafficking because they met the definition in the Law of the Republic of Indonesia no. 21 of 2007, concerning the Eradication of the Crime of Trafficking in Persons: Recruiting, transporting, harboring, sending, transferring, or receiving a person by threatening or using violence, abduction, confinement, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, debt bondage or payment or benefit. Thereby obtaining the consent of the person in question and conducting them within or between countries for exploitation, or causing people to be exploited. Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 176 The experiences of all 27 informants were consistent with the definition; 16 were victims of labor trafficking, and 11 were victims of sex trafficking. Interviews were conducted individually for labor trafficking victims, followed by a focused group discussion to obtain more comprehensive information (Neuman, 2011). In contrast, information from sex trafficking victims was collected only through individual interviews. Informants were offered 250 thousand rupiah (17 US$) for an interview lasting approximately one hour. The labor trafficking victims did not ask for compensation. Finding sex trafficking victims required the decision of the Karawang and Subang District Courts regarding the crime of human trafficking. Information was then obtained from the trafficked women being controlled by another employer. The snowball technique was used to find 11 informants that met the criteria of sex trafficking victims. An open and flexible Interview builds trust and good relations with informants (Neuman, 2011). Interviews were conducted in the Indonesian and Sundanese languages. Since the study team included a Sundanese member, it was easy to communicate using the informants’ mother tongues. Field notes of compiled observations on the subjects helped us understand the informants’ stories (Frechette et al., 2020). Qualitative data analysis is nonlinear and iterative and is difficult to split into stages of data analysis (Lester, Cho, & Lochmiller, 2020). Therefore, thematic analysis was used, following the suggestion of Clarke and Braun (2013). According to Clarke and Braun (2013), “thematic analysis is an umbrella term for different approaches to identifying patterns across qualitative data sets” (p. 97). This technique was chosen because “it fits the data, offers tremendous theoretical flexibility, and could be used as an analytic method rather than a methodology” (Clarke & Braun, 2013). Therefore, data were analyzed according to the suggestions of Clarke and Braun (2013) and Lester et al. (2020). The analysis included data preparation, organization, copying, familiarization, scraping, coding, generating code categories, and transparentizing the analysis process. 4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 4.1. Characteristics of Informants Table 1 shows the details of 27 informants, comprising 14 male and 2 female victims of labor trafficking and 11 female victims of sex trafficking, all of productive age. The youngest victims of labor trafficking were 25 years old when trafficked, while the oldest was 50. Although all the victims had worked as farmers, only 3 owned the land, while 13 had worked on other people's land. Most victims had a low level of education as elementary school graduates, with only 1 person having attended senior high school. All victims were sold as workers in Malaysia for ten months, with low wages and poor living conditions. One female victim of sex trafficking was 17 years old, while the average age of this group was 21 years. Although they had all attended senior high school, only 2 had graduated. Furthermore, 4 victims had previously worked as sales promotion girls for cigarette and perfume products, 2 were still in school, and 5 were domestic workers. Six victims had been controlled by Mami for 2-3 years and 5 for less than 1 year. Their parents had previously worked as farmers, but only 1 of them still worked in agriculture. Additionally, most victims’ parents worked in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, while others worked as motorcycle taxi drivers or had odd jobs. Table 1. Characteristics of informants. Labor Trafficking Sex Trafficking Age 25 1 17 1 40 – 42 5 18 – 19 2 43 – 45 9 20 – 21 4 50 1 22 – 23 4 Previous job Parents' job Farmers owning fields 3 Farmworker 1 Farmworker 13 Working in Malaysia or Saudi Arabia 6 Motorcycle taxi driver 2 Unemployed 2 Highest Education Elementary school graduate 9 Elementary school graduate 0 Junior high school graduate 7 Junior high school graduate 9 Senior high school graduate 0 Senior high school graduate 2 Length of time trafficked ≤ 1 year 15 ≤ 1 year 5 2 – 3 years 1 2 – 3 years 6 Destination Malaysia 16 Big city (Indonesia) 8 Small town (Indonesia) 3 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 177 4.2. Becoming a Victim of Trafficking The Indonesian Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (IMWECP) reported 2,698 victims of human trafficking between 2015 and 2019, of whom 2,319 or 87.6 percent were female. The lay-offs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic (pemutusan hubungan kerja/PHK) led to a 62.5 percent increase in victims by the end of 2020. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, there were 4,906 victims between 2016 and 2019. However, the data are called into doubt by IOM because the two ministries only record reports. IOM estimates that the number of human trafficking victims in Indonesia is between 70,000 and 80,000 per year.3 This number shows that the government's strategy is ineffective in preventing human trafficking. Kosandi, Susanti, Subono, and Kartini (2019) stated that the government is overly focused on glorification and imagery rather than direct efforts to reduce the number of victims. The process of becoming a victim of labor or sex trafficking differs. Brokers visited the candidates with an offer to work in Malaysia’s pineapple and oil palm plantations for IDR 9 million (620 USD) per month. This wage is to be received in full because the company bears the costs of transport, passport processing, housing, and living expenses. The brokers play videos about the success of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia. Candidates with no income certainty become interested in the promises and register as potential migrant workers.4 The dream of a better life with high wages drives them to apply as potential migrant workers and they reinforce each others’ decision-making. This was stated by Walan:5 Here I met some people going to Malaysia. Some were hesitant, but we said it was trying our luck. We would try and support each other and go together. The only thing on our minds was to go to Malaysia, work, earn money, send it home, and later buy rice fields and cows to make a living. This statement shows the innocent reasoning involved; migrant workers do not consider the journey to the workplace, the culture of the destination community, the facilities, or the work system. They do not seek more information about the employment conditions and work system in the destination country from earlier migrant workers. Personal hardship and the brokers’ promises of change raised their expectations and overcame any considerations of possible bad circumstances. The tenacity of the brokers when convincing the prospective migrant workers influences their decision-making. The brokers supplied food between IDR 50 thousand and 100 thousand (3.4–6.9 USD) to targeted families to attract potential migrant workers. This method ensnared the potential migrant workers. Wertheim (1959) and Crouch (1979) showed that in Indonesian society, indebtedness is used by authority holders to control subordinates. In the case of human trafficking, the brokers deliberately give their target food and money. As a result, the targets feel indebted and want to comply with the brokers’ wishes, a phenomenon that can be seen in Indonesia and Southeast Asia more generally. For instance, Filipino girls are entrapped because they want to make money to repay their grandmothers for raising them after their parents divorced (Tsai, 2017). Another significant factor is the difficulty of finding a job when their only skill is farming, in the context of decreasing agricultural land and increasing numbers of employment seekers. They cannot work in the industrial sector because they cannot compete with young educated people with a mastery of information technology. Therefore, after the function of their arable land has been changed, they form a floating mass. They might also be called rootless because they have been uprooted from farming, the roots of their life. However, it is not a floating mass, as described by the German sociologist Hans Dieter Evers, when immigrants to cities fail to integrate into the production system and culture of the urban society. The concept of a floating mass describes farmers and their families who have lost their land, live uncertainly, are controlled by people with capital, political, and information power, and are easily persuaded by brokers. Female prospective migrant workers receive a different treatment, where the brokers provide an inducement of around IDR 5 to 10 million (344.8 USD to 689.7 USD). Although it is easy to hire females in the destination country, a large amount of persuasion money is offered due to the difficulty of obtaining their husbands’ permission and the higher profits subsequently earned by agents.6 Candidates submitted their Identity Cards for their passports to be processed; the cost of between IDR 1 million and 1.7 million (68.9-117.2 USD) was borne by the brokers. On their departure, they gathered at the crossroads in the village and took a bus to the island of Bengkalis. They were smuggled into Malaysia that night when conditions were safe. The workers were escorted by four brokers from Medan, Bengkalis, on the Malaysian coast, to the Syah Alam plantation.7 Having several brokers involved in several places is a strategy traffickers use to prevent migrant workers from controlling the recruitment process, placement, wages, and work facilities. This makes it easier for the workers to be exploited because the brokers state they "do not know the previous process."8 Although the involvement of many brokers increases the costs, it is profitable compared to when the migrant workers take control. The same pattern applies when labor is smuggled from Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar to Thailand (UNODC, 2017). However, the brokers only play this role in the informal sector where unskilled workers are required (Nuraeny, 2017). In line with this, the ILO has reminded supplying and receiving governments about the role of brokers in exploiting workers (ILO, 2008). This long chain of brokers shows that trafficking involves mafias that operate internationally. At the destination plantation, the workers received bad treatment from the foreman. Their passports, cell phones, and money were taken, and they were ordered to work on a plantation with poor transportation and communication networks from morning to evening. Although the workers refused to work and demanded to return to Indonesia, their 3 https://www.migrationdataportal.org/international-data?i=stock_abs_&t=2020 4 Focused Group Discussion at Zubaedah's house, Cilamaya Kulon, on November 5, 2021. 5 Walan is one of the victims. His opinion was conveyed in the FGD at Zubaedah's house on November 5, 2021. 6 As stated by Solehah and Tuti in an interview with researchers in Cilamaya Kulon on December 8, 2021. 7 The results of the FGD held at Mrs. Zubaedah's house on December 8, 2021. 8 “I don't know the previous process” is the answer given by the brokers when asked about inappropriate placement, work facilities, wages, and accommodation. https://www.migrationdataportal.org/international-data?i=stock_abs_&t=2020 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 178 pleas were rejected by the plantation foreman. Those who refused were abused and transferred to remote areas. The pineapple plantation, which covers about 15,000 hectares, had around 150 workers from Indonesia. They demonstrated against the work system and low wages, but they were arrested and threatened with imprisonment.9 Female victims of sex trafficking were deceived by mentors, teachers, and company leaders. They were promised they would pass school exams, and get jobs and gadgets that young people dream of, such as cell phones, laptops, and motorbikes. This seduction is carried out to rob them of their virginity. Of the 11 informants, 5 claimed to have been forced by teachers, 3 by company bosses, and 3 by mentors during work internships. They did not complain to the police because they feared failing exams or being fired from their jobs, and they also expect to receive financial assistance. Daryani, aged 17, stated, "My father knows I am afraid of being kicked out of the house, not graduating from school, and not having a mobile phone."10 Ekawati made a different statement: “I do not want to report to the police or the top company management because he promised to take care of my life. There is nothing at home; leaving would lighten my father's burden.”11 Their experiences contrast with the promises they received, as when Daryani failed to get a diploma because she could not pay for the final exam. Another informant stated that they has been lied to by people they trusted and felt worthless in society. Continual disappointment and their family's economic condition prompted them to follow their village friends’ invitations to seek employment in the city. After unsuccessful applications at several companies, they received job offers in the spa and entertainment sectors. Although working in these fields does not require high skills, the victims realized that the places were full of risks, but they had no other choice. Dera, a mother of one, took up this job when she was 19 years old because of her responsibilities as a mother, eldest child, and sister. Similarly, female victims of sex trafficking in Southeast Asia have cited economic and family survival as reasons for taking the job offers. This is in line with the findings of Tsai (2017) in the Philippines, Dinh, Hughes, Hughes, and Maurer-Fazio (2021) in Vietnam, and Mahalingam and Sidhu (2021) in Malaysia. Both the spa and entertainment sectors force workers to have sex with customers or get fired. Without sex, their income is not enough to meet their monthly needs. The workers were paid IDR 25 thousand (1.7 USD) of the 300 thousand (20.68 USD) a customer pays for a massage. Therefore, their income in 25 working days is IDR 2.5 million (172.4 USD) for massaging an average of 4 customers a day. The average cost of living in Jakarta is IDR 3.5 million (241.4 USD) per month. On the other hand, a worker receives IDR 250 thousand (17.2 USD) to 750 thousand (51.7 USD)12 for sex, although the workers in the entertainment sector earn a lower income. They get IDR 15 thousand to 200 thousand for accompanying a guest and singing for 1 hour. Therefore, their monthly income is IDR 1.875 million (129.3 USD) if they serve an average of 5 guests a day. Workers in the spa and entertainment sectors get an average tip of IDR 50 thousand (3.4 USD) from each customer they have sex with. The trafficked women work an average of 12 hours a day with no overtime pay. Spa workers start work at 11.00 and leave at 23.00, while entertainment workers start at 15.00 and leave at 02.30. However, they must be ready whenever the boss requires them and are not paid if they fail to work for any reason. Their income strictly follows the principle of “no work, no pay, no benefits received.” This principle is harsher than the iron law of wages suggested by David Ricardo 13 The exploitation of women in these sectors could persist due to poverty, scarce employment opportunities in rural areas, and the patriarchal culture. 4.3. Antecedent Factors Previous studies have hardly examined antecedent factors because they were more interested in explaining the direct causes. However, any explanation of the complex trafficking phenomenon that fails to include the antecedent factors is inadequate. For instance, Sutinah and Kinuthia (2019) only identified the high number of early marriages, violence victims, low levels of education, and limited education opportunities as direct causes in East Java. They did not explain why early marriages and violence occurred. Similarly, Durisin and van der Meulen (2021) stated that the family does not always act as a protective institution in Canada. Young girls who leave their families are considered perfect targets for traffickers. Tallmadge and Gitter (2018) predicted that countries with large populations of immigrants, access to the sea, low per capita GDP, and high unemployment would have the highest levels of trafficking. The interviews showed that farmers resembled a floating mass and were rootless after the function of their arable land was changed. Since their only skill was farming, they faced difficulties when attempting to change professions, making them perfect targets for trafficking. The tantalizing promises made by brokers destroyed the potential victims’ ability to think critically, making them feel that leaving the village was the best option. This is in line with Jonsson (2019), who found that trafficking is caused by migration flows from villages to cities and between countries. However, it does not always occur between countries whose borders are closed with tight controls. The other important determinants are the traffickers’ network, transportation, and weak law enforcement. In this study, the trafficking is supported by a strong network of traffickers that stretches from villages to foreign countries. Closed networks, such as the mafia, exploit the farmers’ need for work and take advantage of the weak law enforcement to hit potential victims and trade routes in ways that evade the police. Another cause is the informal sector’s considerable demand for low-skilled workers. The informal sector pays low wages and lacks complicated work agreements (Nuraeny, 2017). As detailed in Table 1, the workers are not competitive in the capital-intensive sector and usually enter the domestic, dangerous, and dirty (3D) sector. They are caught by the 9 Results of FGD in Cilamaya on January 25, 2022. 10 Interview with Daryani in Karawang on November 23, 2021, from 15.20 to 16.30 Jakarta time. 11 Interview with Ekawati in Karawang on November 25, 2021, 11.05-12.00 Jakarta time. 12 This data represents an average based on the informants' stories. Some informants are paid IDR 1 million to have sex with customers, others IDR 500 thousand, 750 thousand, or 800 thousand, depending on their beauty. 13 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Law-of-Wages accessed on December 21, 2021, at 12:05 Jakarta time https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Law-of-Wages Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 179 mafia and exploited in various ways, such as high-interest-rate loans that they are made to work hard to repay.14 Furthermore, their passports are withheld or lost, leaving them undocumented. This forces victims to accept low wages while being exploited by being made to work long hours and carry out high-risk jobs. The lawbreaker status is also used to perpetuate exploitation. It is used to force Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia to comply with employers' orders, such as long working hours, low wages, and limited work facilities. The 3D sector workers with low education are labeled as troublemakers and are disciplined using violence. Malaysians consider themselves rich employers and helpers of the Indonesian economy. The same approach towards migrants is taken by Europeans, who consider them criminals, poor, troublemakers, and seekers of refuge from their own country’s failure. As a result, this approach divides society into natives and immigrants through processes of exclusion and inclusion (Jonsson, 2019). However, xenophobia and racism have not emerged in the case of Indonesian migrants in Malaysia as they have in European countries (Hürtgen, 2020). Traffickers also build an image of themselves as helpers of female victims of sex trafficking. Labels such as failed children, rural people, and poor and immoral women are constantly being produced as a cover for exploitation.15 For this reason, traffickers feel entitled to regulate the lives of their victims, whose need for work makes them dependent. Activists joining the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU) and Migrant Care have conducted massive socialization and education efforts regarding recruitment, placement, and work systems in destination countries. This socialization has been carried out in areas known as suppliers of migrant workers. It involved local officials and IMWU, who pioneered the preparation of village regulations regarding migrant workers. However, socialization has not had definitive results, as evidenced by the increase in the number of victims. Between December 2021 and January 2022, 37 prospective migrant workers from Indonesia died at sea when their overloaded ships sank.16 The labor trafficking from Indonesia to Malaysia continues due to the strong driving and attracting factors. Furthermore, sex trafficking continues in the era of Covid-19, which has triggered 2.5 million layoffs. Domestic violence that afflicts young families also increases divorce rates and sex trafficking. 5. CONCLUSION Few previous studies have discussed labor trafficking, a phenomenon prevalent in labor oversupply countries such as Indonesia. Analysts have always examined labor and sex trafficking separately, as though they have different characteristics. In contrast, this study has examined the two forms of trafficking to identify the characteristics they have in common. The findings showed that trafficking results from converting agricultural land to non-agricultural functions. Farmers and their families, who previously relied on the primary sector, cannot participate in the secondary and tertiary sectors due to limited resources. They are uprooted and become a floating mass, making them ideal victims of trafficking. The traffickers identify potential victims and promise they can change their lives. Regarding the identification of potential and perfect victims, this study supports Durisin and van der Meulen’s (2021) argument about women trafficking in Canada. Other characteristics of victims are consistent with previous studies, such as poverty, low education, being unskilled, of productive age, and informal sector employees (Barber, 2000; Nuraeny, 2017; Palumbo & Sciurba, 2015; Rafferty, 2021; Sutinah & Kinuthia, 2019). Victims of labor and sex trafficking both share the burden of struggling to maintain the family economy. However, previous studies on trafficking have not discussed people who choose risky jobs to support their families. The classic reasons the victims give echo the ideology of the family as a source of protection and economy. However, this finding differs from the results of previous studies where victims are the products of broken homes (Durisin & van der Meulen, 2021; Rafferty, 2021) and require reintegration. In contrast with the families of labor trafficking victims, families of sex trafficking victims do not know the nature of their children's work. In agricultural land conversion, careful government planning is needed to ensure there are jobs for excluded farmers. Attracting investors and turning agricultural land into industrial land has encouraged structural transformation. The contribution of the secondary and broadcast sectors to the gross domestic product is more than 75%. However, in the absence of good planning, it creates social problems. Therefore, Third World countries undergoing structural transformation should consider the impact of agricultural land conversion on farmworkers and their families. Funding: This research is supported by the Universitas Nasional (Grant number: Rector's Decree Number 90/2021). Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ Contributions: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study. Views and opinions expressed in this study are those of the authors views; the Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development shall not be responsible or answerable for any loss, damage, or liability, etc. caused in relation to/arising out of the use of the content. 14 This method was experienced by victims of labor and sex trafficking, as stated by informants in the FGD in Karawang on January 25, 2022, as well as information from victims of sexual trafficking, namely Daryani, Maryanti, Lulu, Intan, and Sandra, in interviews with researchers in Jakarta and Karawang on December 16, 2021, and January 12, 2022. 15 Noted by Daryani, Ekawati, Refinisa, Lulu, Intan, Maryanti, Sandra, and Cahyani in separate interviews with researchers in December 2021 and January 2022. 16 https://www.cnnindonesia.com/internasional/20220120191720-106-749297/33-wni-tewas-imbas-kapal-tenggelam-di-malaysia-sejak-desember-2021 https://www.cnnindonesia.com/internasional/20220120191720-106-749297/33-wni-tewas-imbas-kapal-tenggelam-di-malaysia-sejak-desember-2021 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 12(3)2022: 173-181 180 REFERENCES Barber, P. 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