WUNRN
http://apwld.org/i-could-have-been-mary-jane-veloso-erwiana/
“I Could Have Been Mary Jane Veloso”
By Trafficking
Victim Migrant Worker, Erwiana
Mary Jane Veloso was spared from death at the last
minute. She still faces execution.
May 11, 2015 - Mary Jane is a
migrant domestic worker just like me. Like me, Mary Jane was forced to become a
migrant domestic worker because of poverty, because of a commitment to support
her family, because she had no other choice. Like me she suffered abuse. Like
me she almost died.
When working as a domestic worker in Dubai, Mary
Jane was attacked and hospitalized. After a month in hospital and a rape trial
of the perpetrator, she went home. But she couldn’t earn money at home to
support her children, and had no choice but to sell her few possessions and
become indebted to an informal agent who professed to be her friend and migrate
again. She was told she would be given work in Malaysia, like so many
Indonesian domestic workers. But the work didn’t eventuate. She was given
new clothes and a new suitcase and told to go to Indonesia until other work
would be sorted for her.
Like me, Mary Jane was in no position to question
the agents that made her migration possible. Like me she was in debt. Like me
she trusted people that promised to help. Like me she couldn’t speak the local
language. Like me she needed to navigate a legal system that wasn’t in her
language and that she didn’t understand.
But unlike me Mary Jane was a defendant. And unlike
me Mary Jane had no support.
Mary Jane was charged with drug trafficking. But in
fact it was Mary Jane who was trafficked. Like hundreds of thousands of women
around the world Mary Jane was controlled and made to travel as human cargo for
the profit of others.
Indonesia’s own National Commission on Violence
against Women, Komnas
Perempuan has said that Mary Jane should have been dealt with as a victim
of trafficking, not a criminal. Wrongly charged she then had to
sit through a trial that she didn’t understand. She was appointed a lawyer that
she saw only during the trial. She was given an interpreter, a student who was
studying English. But Mary Jane didn’t speak English, she spoke Tagalog. When
asked whether she regretted what had happened she said ‘No’ thinking they were
asking if she had committed a crime.
Mary Jane is
just like me. She is just like the 3 million Indonesian women
who have migrated for work. We migrate because we have to. We don’t have power
and money and we are put into the most vulnerable positions, physically,
legally and economically. There are 278 Indonesians on death row around the
world. Many of them are just like Mary Jane and me. Desperate people in
desperate circumstances.
Our President said he is here to govern for us, for
the least powerful. He said he no longer wants to force Indonesian women to
migrate into vulnerability. But if he really wants to support us he should give
Mary Jane a fair trial because she is just like us. If he eventually executes
her he will be harming us all. We will no longer be able to call for justice
for Indonesian migrant workers. Today I want to ask our President – will you
kill a woman just like me? Or will you prove to us that you are listening to
the people and give her a fair trial.
Saving Mary Jane could help save the 278 Indonesians
on death row. But it can do even more. Her case should force our government to rethink
the justice systems that fail migrant workers. The Philippines government
intervened so late it was almost fatal. Our government must provide full legal
assistance to migrant workers and prosecute the real traffickers, some of whom
work as migration agents. We know that could save lives and reunite families.
But our government needs to do more. Our government
should commit to real action to stop people like me and Mary Jane from having
to migrate in the first place. If our government ensured Decent Work at home,
stopped land-grabbing and guaranteed Development Justice we would not need to
migrate, we would not face exploitation, become victims of trafficking and we
would not risk death sentences – from legal systems or at the hands of
employers.
With the support of people’s movements I have obtained
justice. My employer, who attacked and tortured me is behind bars,
not me.
Mary Jane is just like me. Except I live. I am free.
And I will not rest until Mary Jane and all women are free.
Signed, Erwiana Sulistyaningsih
From: WUNRN LISTSERVE [mailto:wunrn1@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 9:40 PM
To: WUNRN ListServe (wunrn_listserve@lists.wunrn.com)
Subject: Indonesia Executed 8 Convicted of Drug Charges, but Mary Jane
Veloso of The Philippines, the Only Woman, Was Given a Stay of Execution
WUNRN
INDONESIA EXECUTES 8 CONVICTED ON DRUG CHARGES, BUT MARY
JANE VELOSO OF THE PHILIPPINES WAS GIVEN STAY OF EXECUTION
“The authorities granted the stay of execution to Mary Jane Veloso, 30, a
Philippine citizen, after the Philippine government requested her assistance in
a human trafficking case involving a woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday.”
By JOE COCHRANE - APRIL 28, 2015
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Defying international condemnation and rejecting
11th-hour pleas for clemency, the Indonesian government executed eight drug
convicts after midnight on Wednesday, including seven foreigners.
But the execution of a ninth convict, scheduled to happen at the same time,
was unexpectedly postponed at nearly the last minute, according to the
Indonesian attorney general’s office.
The executed prisoners, from Australia, Brazil
and Nigeria, along with one Indonesian, were shot by police firing squads at
about 12:25 a.m. local time at a site outside the gates of Pasir Putih prison
on the island of Nusa Kambangan off the southern coast of Java, according to the
attorney general’s office.
The authorities granted the stay of execution to Mary Jane Veloso, 30, a
Philippine citizen, after the Philippine government requested her assistance in
a human trafficking case involving a woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday.
“An alleged perpetrator of human trafficking gave herself up, and Mary
Jane’s testimony is needed,” Tony Spontana, a spokesman for the Indonesian
attorney general, wrote in a text message shortly after the executions were
carried out. “Eight people were executed, but not Mary Jane,” he wrote.
Ms. Veloso’s family maintains that she was duped by a drug syndicate into
flying to Indonesia in 2010 with more than 5 pounds of heroin hidden in a
suitcase. President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines had repeatedly
appealed for her to be spared. The woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday was identified as one of those who recruited Ms. Veloso.
Relatives and friends of the condemned paid them final visits on Tuesday,
but were not allowed by the Indonesian authorities to witness the executions.
Shortly after midnight Tuesday, mourners in the port town of Cilacap, which
is the access point to the prison island, held a candlelight vigil for the
condemned prisoners that was televised.
The mass execution was the second in Indonesia this year. In January, five
foreign drug convicts and one Indonesian convicted of murder were shot by
firing squads on the island.
On Saturday, the attorney general’s office gave 72 hours’ notice to the
latest group of condemned prisoners, their legal teams and their respective
embassies that the executions would be carried out.
On Monday, an Australian prisoner, Andrew Chan, married his Indonesian
fiancée in a small wedding ceremony at the prison.