by Muhammad Fazlur Zikra Arifuddin (photo via VOAIndonesia)

As it is known for several years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) has always comprised of 10 members. However, since 2002 there is a new player waiting to be accepted within the association. Timor-Leste after gaining its independence from Indonesia has started to show its interest to contribute in ASEAN’s solidarity. Since its independence, Timor-Leste holds the status as an observer state despite its participations in ASEAN Annual Meeting of Foreign Ministers (AMM), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and even agreed to the Southeast Asia’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in 2007. Despite its participation efforts, Timor-Leste has not been granted its membership status although officially applied for in 2011. There are three possible reasons that might answer the question of why Timor-Leste is still not a member of ASEAN, which are due to change of ASEAN’s legal personality, what Timor-Leste has to offer, and foreign influence.

It is known that in the establishment of ASEAN, the first five members, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, agreed to Bangkok Declaration or also known as ASEAN Declaration. Then, the constituent instrument of ASEAN is shifted towards ASEAN Charter, which was enacted in 2007. The charter has made the admission of a new member more difficult with the additional requirements laid out in Article 6 Section 2 that states Location in the recognized geographical region of Southeast Asia; Recognition by all ASEAN Member States; Agreement to be bound and abide by the Charter; and Ability and willingness to carry out the obligation of Membership. While the Declaration’s requirements are only the matter of location and capable to adhere the aims principles and purposes, made it easier for Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar to gain membership compared to Timor-Leste. While the first three requirements are met, the latest are still in process of being required. In ensuring the fulfillment of the requirements, ASEAN established ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group (ACCWG) after Timor-Leste’s application. To be a new member, under the Charter, Timor-Leste has to align its legal framework to with ASEAN legal instruments and ASEAN Community Blueprint. The study shows that by 2015, Timor-Leste has only 1.6% binding its legal frameworks with ASEAN’s agreement while it was targeted to be fully compliant with the increase 50% in legal alignment by June 2018.

In further explaining Timor-Leste’s ability and willingness, it has reached to the question of ‘What Timor-Leste has to offer?’ Despite its past in struggling for independence, Timor-Leste has scored 7.19 in the 2018 Democracy Index by The Economist Intelligence Unit, placed as the highest democracy state among other ASEAN members. Also, Timor-Leste has successfully conducted its premier election without domestic political turmoil. This shows the accountability of Timor-Leste in its ability to carry out the would-be tasks as ASEAN member. Timor-Leste also had opened its embassies in all of ten ASEAN members, which is an important parameter for them to be considered as a new member. All member states supports Timor-Leste’s admission and it come without full assurance, stating that Timor-Leste is still lacking in economic capability and human resources. However, this statement could be proven wrong. According to data provided by the World Bank, Timor-Leste’s GDP per capita in 2018 placed above Cambodia’s and Myanmar’s. This also shows the capability of Timor-Leste’s economy that is comparable with the two ASEAN member mentioned previously. Meanwhile, Timor-Leste still needs to improve its human resources as its Human Capital Index was listed at the lowest among all the ASEAN members.

Last but not least, another factor that influence the prolonging of Timor-Leste’s membership admission is the fear of possible foreign influence. It is important to be noted that, China as one of the first country to recognize Timor-Leste, has been sending helps and assistance towards Timor-Leste since its independence. This includes mostly infrastructure, military and government facilities. As mentioned previously, improvement in economy and human resources is needed by Timor-Leste in securing its possibility to become a member of ASEAN. In achieving this, Timor-Leste is still in progress for improvement, and it is impossible without any help. On 23^rd March 2017, Timor-Leste is approved to be a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which is backed by China, to improve its economic and social development. Another apparent fact is that Timor-Leste also joined China’s Belt and Road Energy Partnership and received aid in building infrastructures, including Timor-Leste National Power Grid, Suai Highway, as well as Tibar Bay Port. These aids are helpful for Timor-Leste’s development, however, it is problematic at the same time as ASEAN by accepting Timor-Leste would mean that China may influence Timor-Leste’s decision in ASEAN. Thus, hampering the consensus decision-making process. One example would be the veto by Cambodia and Laos in the issue of South China Sea seems to be defending China’s interest and hampers the ASEAN consensus in Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea.

In conclusion, the prolonging process of Timor-Leste’s admission to ASEAN is due to shift of ASEAN Declaration towards ASEAN Charter, which allows ASEAN in delaying the process; Timor-Leste’s economy and human resources; and the likelihood of foreign influence within ASEAN in the future. Possibility and impossibility for Timor-Leste’s admission are included within the aforementioned reasons. Despite the obstacles present ahead, Timor-Leste should continue to be tenacious in their effort for ASEAN membership.

Muhammad Fazlur Zikra Arifuddin is an Undergraduate Student majoring in International Relations, Universitas Gadjah Mada. He has recently completed the internship program at ASEAN Studies Center UGM. Zikra could be reached through email zika_arf@yahoo.co.id.

by Amelia Harvey (picture by Tormod Sandtorv)

Orphanages for children are increasing in number globally and throughout much of Southeast Asia. Worldwide, UNICEF has estimated that as many as 8 million girls and boys live in orphanages or institutional residential care facilities where children are stripped from their families, homes and rights [UNICEF 2006 Pg.183]. This essay will focus on the rise of orphanages in Cambodia and the manner in which voluntourism has accelerated this growth.

The growth of orphanages is not unique to Cambodia and is growing internationally, it is estimated that 80 per cent of children living in orphanages are not actual orphans and have at least one living parent. To bring this to perspective, Haiti has experienced a 150 per cent rise in orphanages since the 2010 earthquake, with only 15 per cent of institutions being formally registered. It is estimated by the Haitian government that 80 per cent have at least one living parents and 92 per cent of orphanages are funded from the United States [Batha 2018]. A similar motive continues in Nepal, where 85 per cent of children are believed to have one living parent and in Ghana, which has seen a 1400 per cent increase in the number of orphanages in the past 13 years [UNICEF 2019][Matthews 2019].

Cambodia faces a similar situation as written above. Between 2005 to 2010, while the number of parentless children fell, the number of orphanages rose by over 75 per cent and the number of children living in these institutions increased by 80 per cent [Guiney & Mostafanezhad 2015 p.140][Matthews 2019]. Furthermore, the push for more children to entre orphanages has been promoted by the false mindset that has penetrated the culture claiming that a child in an orphanage will have better educational opportunities and be able to learn English. In turn, it is advocated that the child will have more employment prospects in later life to then lift their families out of poverty in the future. While this is not only false and damaging to families and their children, it places a burden on the child to be responsible for their family and destroys their ability to forge their own path in life [Matthews 2019]. Children with disabilities are consistently placed in orphanages as their families believe the orphanages will be more equipped to care for them. Overall, poverty has become the main factor in children relocating to orphanages, not the incapacity of their parents and families to raise them[ReThink Orphanages 2019].

A key factor in the Cambodian orphanage boom has been due to the influx of volunteer tourists, or ‘voluntourists’. Voluntourism is the phenomenon of outside people, generally from the global north, paying to participate in programs, usually in development or conservation projects, generally in the global south. Orphanage voluntourism is a subsection of the industry, it is short-term volunteering at an orphanage, donating money and goods, or attending performances incorporated into a holiday [Guiney & Mostafanezhad 2015 p.133]. Orphanage voluntourism is a part of the global poverty tourism industry and has emerged in Cambodia among tourists seeking to ‘give back’ during their travels. The vast majority of orphanages are not run by the state, rather they are funded in whole by fees and donations from volunteers and other tourists [Matthews 2019]. The fees donated are usually made in cash and from then on becomes untraceable and embroiled in corruption, one report indicated a foreigners handing up to $7000 to an orphanage director without receiving a receipt or any indication of where the funds will be going [Guiney & Mostafanezhad 2015 p.140].

The lack of transparency about the paths the money has meant little of the funds collected go towards the children in need. Testimonies from children who have lived at orphanages highlight the lack of resources they received outlining “We never had enough food to eat … often we would catch mice to eat” and “the volunteers at the orphanage never noticed anything, but they notices us looking poor, so they would donate” [Parliament of Australia 2017]. Furthermore, gifts, clothes and toys given to the children by visitors are also reclaimed by the orphanage directors to then be resold, creating a never-ending cycle at the expense of the children [Matthews 2019]. To generate more revenue, children are forced to perform traditional Khmer songs and dances “to make them [the tourists] happy” and uphold the ‘poor but happy’ vibe. The children are essentially treated as slaves at the oblivion of the visitor [Parliament of Australia 2017] [BBC 2018].

To expand, the voluntourism industry has significant emotional toll on the children themselves. The children are expected to enhance their vulnerability while expressing continuous joy about the visitors in their home, with some children being told to refer to the visitors as “mummy” and “daddy” (in English) and befriend them to heighten emotional reactions. The orphanage directors work as ‘emotional supervisors’ to ensure the children act accordingly to elicit high donations and so the children do not inform the visitors of the abuse they experience [Guiney 2017 p.131]. Furthermore, many children in orphanages experience attachment disorder as the high turnover of volunteers as they are constantly forming new emotional connections with new adults. Former children at orphanages loved the attention from volunteers but have said “it was even more terrible when they [the volunteers] left; every time it would feel like I was being abandoned” [Guiney 2017 p.133] [Parliament of Australia 2017]. The children have been conditioned to cuddle anyone, leaving them vulnerable in a path leading to paedophiles and sexual assault, especially as approximately 22% of tourists in Cambodia visiting for sex tourism, with child sex tourism unfortunately embedded into this [Guiney 2017 p.134].

The further trouble in voluntourism in orphanages is that the volunteers themselves do not have any applicable skills needed for working with children, nor do they receive sufficient training. Moreover, the practice of them entering the children’s homes and viewing them as a tourist commodity reinforces Western superiority perceptions while also eroding their right to privacy and agency in their lives [Guiney & Mostafanezhad 2015 p.134].

To combat the growing number of orphanages, the Cambodian Government is working towards an action plan with a goal to return 30 per cent of children in orphanages to their families or to community and family based care. By June 2019, 250 children have successfully reunited with their families and communities and 449 cases have been opened by the Department of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation in Cambodia. The children will have support with their reintegration from social workers and be re-enrolled in schools [UNICEF 2019]. In conjunction to combat the growth of orphanages fuelled by voluntourism, the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office warn citizens about the risks orphanage volunteering poses to the children and the Australian Government maintains child performances in orphanages is tantamount to modern-day slavery [United Kingdom 2015][BBC 2018]. Many large travel companies began to stand against orphanage tourism, including Intrepid, Projects Abroad, Flight Centre, World Challenge and more, creating an international coalition against the practice [ReThink Orphanages 2018].

Living in an orphanage is one of the most damaging environments a child can grow up in. yet even with the harm institutionalisation brings being well known, orphanages continue to be built. The orphanage industry has been booming in Cambodia, fuelled by the voluntourism industry of wealthy foreigners paying large sums to visit and play with the children accompanied with the cultural misconception that children will receive high quality education in the orphanages. As the extreme negative impacts of the orphanage industry is revealed, the Cambodian Government needs to continue with reintegrating children into their families and communities while foreign governments and travel companies alike need to advise against orphanage tourism.

References

Batha, E 2018 Most children in orphanages are not orphans [ONLINE] Available at: http://news.trust.org/item/20181114025819-qqbtx/ [Accessed 24 October 2019]

BBC 2018 Australia says orphanage trafficking is modern-day slavery [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46390627 [Accessed 25 October 2019]

Guiney, T & Mostafanezhad, M 2015 The Political economy of orphanage tourism in Cambodia Tourist Studies Vol, 15(2) Pg.133-4,140

Guiney, T 2017 “Hug-an-orphan vacations”: “Love” and emotion in orphanage tourism Geographical Journal 184 (2) June 2017 Pg.133-4

Image: Knaus, C 2017 The race to rescue Cambodian children from orphanages exploiting them for profit [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/19/the-race-to-rescue-cambodian-children-from-orphanages-exploiting-them-for-profit [Accessed 25 October 2019]

Matthews, L 2019 Critiques of Voluntourism SOCU1038 RMIT University 21:20 minutes 23 October 2019 Times 17:30-35:00

Parliament of Australia, 2017 Orphanage Trafficking Committee in establishing the Modern Slavery Act in Australia [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/ModernSlavery/Final_report/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024102%2F25036 [Accessed 25 October 2019]

ReThink Orphanages 2018 Travel Companies that do not support orphanage tourism [ONLINE] Available at: https://rethinkorphanages.org/volunteer-checklist/travel-companies-do-not-support-orphanage-tourism [Accessed 25 October 2019]

ReThink Orphanages 2019 Facts and Figures about Orphanage Tourism [ONLINE] Available at: https://rethinkorphanages.org/problem-orphanages/facts-and-figures-about-orphanage-tourism [Accessed 25 October 2019]

UNICEF 2006 World Report on Violence against Children Chapter 5, Violence against children in care and justice institutions Page 183

UNICEF 2019 Escaping the misery of orphanage life [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.unicef.org/cambodia/stories/escaping-misery-orphanage-life [Accessed 25 October 2019]

UNICEF 2019 Volunteering in Orphanages [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.unicef.org/rosa/what-we-do/child-protection/volunteering-orphanages [Accessed 24 October 2019]

United Kingdom 2015 Gap years, volunteering overseas and adventure travelling [ONLINE] Updated 18 October 2019 Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safer-adventure-travel-and-volunteering-overseas [Accessed 25 October 2019]

Amelia Harvey is an Undergraduate Student majoring in International Studies at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia. She has been working as an intern at ASEAN Studies Center UGM for two months and currently working on her final undergraduate thesis. She could be reached through email amelia.harvey1998@hotmail.com

by M. Daffa Syauqi A (Photo by Lance Cpl. Kasey Peacock)

It has been 52 years since the conception of ASEAN in 1967 as the leading inter-state organization in Southeast Asia. Built on the spirit of similar history as former colonialized coutry as well to prevent the spread of Communism in the region, ASEAN has steadily making progress in various aspects within state-building process such as security, economy as well as cultural cooperation. It was further emphasized by the creation of three pillars consisted of Political-Security Community, Economic Community, as well as Socio-Cultural Community (ASEAN, 2015) as the framework for the following actions taken by ASEAN to further integrate the region. However with such progress the capability of ASEAN to enforce the recognition of declaration it made must be questioned, especially when it touched the sphere of Political-Security Community that are still often considered as ‘taboo’ and ‘sensitive’ issue. In this paper the author would like to bring up the issue of ASEAN principles in protecting various ruling class policies and actions within ASEAN state members, the issue will be exemplified in three countries which are Indonesia, Phillippines, and Myanmar.

Within the scope of ASEAN, it was acknowledged that the principle of non-intereference signed in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 1976 proved to be a vital instrument in keeping order in ASEAN (ASEAN, 1976) to allow each of the state members to respect each other domestic politics and promised not to intervene within each other affairs. Within Political-Security matter, this might cause a contradicting policy to be applied in various Southeast Asian states considering that most of the countries still have tendency to fall into dictatorship as military influence within the newly-born democratic ideas are still gripping strong in these countries. Such example could be seen on the direct violation of ASEAN Human Rights Declaration that was signed in 2012 at Phnom Penh, Cambodja (ASEAN, 2012) that defines the general principles of Human Rights protection in Southeast Asia consisted of Civil & Political rights, Economic, Social and Cultural rights, Right to Development and Right to Peace. In this case, the audience may see Indonesia under Joko Widodo administration brutally repressing Papua demonstrator for their demand of independence due to the lack of development in the region (Tasevski, 2019), then Philippines within Duterte’s administration where thousands of people died due to its brutal crackdown on drugdealers and users that are rampant within the country (Ellis-Petersen, 2018), and last but not least the ethnic genocide of Rohingya that currently happened in Myanmar under the watch of Noble prize winner Aung San Suu Kyii and regarded as one of the worst genocidal case in Southeast Asia (Safdar & Siddiqui, 2019).

Despite these atrocities, there are no single action from ASEAN or its state members to stop these policies besides ‘condemning’ the action or simply sending in protests. The principle of non-interference stands as the lack of rigid enforcer of Human Rights Declaration ASEAN has made few years prior. Be it reminded that when it was brought within the context of local politics, both of these leaders have appeased to the populists demands in the creation of these policies. Without any enforcer entity stronger than the overall position of state members, ASEAN will upheld its status quo in reserving its lack of willingness in the creation of, in this case, human rights norms within the region meanwhile allowing more atrocities to happen. In comparison to European Union, they had clear and distinct bureaucratic level, the creation of European Commission as the executive branch of regional decision-making as well as Court of Justice of the European Union that acts judiscial entity of the region, making a clear indication that European Union is indeed one-way above state, wielding the capability to bring out the jurisdiction and enforcement to its member states upon dealing with an issue.

In ASEAN however, it is often doubted that ASEAN will not be able to create nor willing to create similar position as European Union has made now, considering that the status quo that is currently going on in ASEAN right now is working in ruling class’ favor. The requirement of having able to settle one’s issue without any interference from outside actors proved to be an invaluable elements that ASEAN can provide to its member states as state-building progress are considered to be far more important than other issues, therefore each of the ruling class in member states cannot afford to have an uprising or movement that challenges their state-building progress.

Reference List

ASEAN. (2015). Declaration of ASEAN Concord II (Bali Concord II. Retrieved from http://www.asean.org/news/item/declaration-of-asean-concord-ii-bali-concord-ii

ASEAN, (1976). Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia Indonesia, 24 February 1976. Retrieved from https://asean.org/treaty-amity-cooperation-southeast-asia-indonesia-24-february-1976/

ASEAN, (2012). ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from <https://www.asean.org/storage/images/ASEAN_RTK_2014/6_AHRD_Booklet.pdf>

Tasevski, O., (2019). “West Papua’s Quest for Independence”. The Diplomat. Retrieved from < https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/west-papuas-quest-for-independence/>

Ellis-Petersen, H., (2018). “Duterte’s Philippines drug war death toll rises above 5,000.” The Guardian. Retrieved from < https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/19/dutertes-philippines-drug-war-death-toll-rises-above-5000>

Safdar, A. & Usaid Siddque, (2019). “ICJ speech: Suu Kyi fails to use ‘Rohingya’ to describe minority.” Al-Jazeera. Retrieved from < https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/aung-san-suu-kyi-fails-word-rohingya-icj-speech-191212102606322.html>

M. Daffa Syauqi A is a last year Undergraduate student majoring in International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Daffa is currently working as an intern at ASEAN Studies Center UGM. He could be reached through email daffa.syauqi97@gmail.com.