VIVAnews – A tragic story happened 20 years ago but forgotten as time went by. At that time, in 1992, a body of an Indonesian female migrant worker was sent home from Singapore.
Due to irregular cause death, the autopsy was carried out in Indonesia, which then revealed a shocking truth. “The organs were taken and replaced with plastic bags,” said Executive Director of Migrant Care, Anis Hidayah, to VIVAnews, on Tuesday.
The deceased was from a town in Central Java. “Her name’s Ati Wardiyati,” said Anis. It was hard to find out the details of the poor woman’s story. Only little information was available as migrant workers’ protection was not an important issue.
Moreover, “it happened in the New Order are. There were not much attempts to protect Indonesian immigrant workers,” said Anis.
According to Anis, Ati’s tragedy becomes the reason of why suspicion must be aroused following the transport of bodies of the Indonesian workers from Malaysia to Nusa Tenggara Barat, which showed irregularities.
The three workers, Herman, Abdul Kadir Jaelani, and Mad Noon, were pronounced dead due to gunshot wounds inflicted by Malaysian law enforcement. They were thought of planning to rob and attack the law enforcement. Their deaths were caused by various gunshot wounds: Herman was shot in the head, Abdul Kadir and Mad Noon suffered multiple gunshot wounds; their bodies received the same treatment.
There were stitches in the middle of their chests, then across the chest and the abdomen. The most suspicious thing is that there were stitches on their eyes. It’s possible that their organs were stolen. “The stitched eyes have raised doubts. Migrant Care has never experienced the return of bodies with stitched eyes, even if the victim was autopsied,” said Anis.
Therefore, Migrant Care and family members urged another autopsy to clarify whether the bodies were victims of organ trade as well as to find out the gunshot wounds that killed them.
If their organs prove stolen without consent, Anis continued, that means human trafficking had happened. “It’s a transnational crime. Indonesian Police and Malaysian Police must work together on this. A fair process must be taken because Indonesian workers in Malaysia were considered unimportant.” There’s a threat of turning Indonesian workers into organ donors.
“From the case of Indonesian workers’ death, only 30% were complete with autopsy. The rest were considered as fate or misfortunate event,” said Anis.
