Civil Liability and Contractual Exploitation in Human Trafficking of Women and Children

Abstract

This study aims to examine how private-law instruments are abused as mechanisms of exploitation in the trafficking of women and children, and to analyse the civil-liability framework and private-law remedies available for the recovery of victims under Indonesian law. Human trafficking is frequently approached only as a criminal-law problem, while its private-law dimension where exploitation is disguised behind employment contracts, debt-bond arrangements, powers of attorney, and notarial deeds remains underexplored. A normative juridical approach was employed, combining statutory, conceptual, and comparative analysis of the Indonesian Civil Code, Law Number 21 of 2007, Law Number 18 of 2017, the Palermo Protocol, and contemporary scholarship. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the apparent consent of trafficked women and children is legally defective by reason of coercion, fraud, and abuse of circumstances, so that exploitative contracts are voidable or null for unlawful cause; that the perpetrators and parties who knowingly benefit are jointly liable in tort under Article 1365 of the Civil Code for material and immaterial damages; and that preventive notarial due diligence, combined with nullity, tort liability, and restitution, forms a victim-centred privatelaw architecture grounded in substantive Pancasila justice.