Outsourcing control: The international organization for migration in Indonesia

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) receives considerable funding from the Australian government to undertake a variety of migration control operations in Indonesia. In this article, we highlight how the IOM’s migration management operations aim to target asylum seekers, control their movement, and prevent their arrival on Australian shores. IOM Indonesia’s approach involves the detention of irregular migrants, the return of asylum seekers and refugees to their countries of origin, the strengthening of Indonesia’s border controls, and public information campaigns to dissuade people from taking boats to Australia to seek asylum. We argue that these tactics frequently compromise the rights of asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia by prioritising Australia’s geopolitical deterrence agenda. Such activities present a contradiction with the IOM’s closer relationship with the United Nations since 2016, which we critique as ‘blue-washing’: creating the impression of a humanitarian organisation while simultaneously carrying out migration control activities on behalf of donor states of the global north. We draw upon financial records, freedom of information requests and previous scholarship on asylum seekers in Indonesia to critique the IOM’s activities across Indonesia.