March 11, 2025
JAKARTA – The visa-free facility for ASEAN citizens to travel within the region should be a blessing, but for a few thousand Indonesians it has been a nightmare.
Many Indonesian migrant workers would not have fallen prey to human trafficking, and all the horrors that come with it, if travel had not been made easy by the facility under the aegis of the ASEAN community project.
This is not to say that ASEAN should stop the visa-free arrangements, but it does call for ASEAN governments to work together even harder to combat online human trafficking operations that are clearly taking advantage of the visa facility for massive profits.
While we commend the Thai and…