REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Indonesian Ministry for Foreign Affairs says the case of imprisoned Indonesian crew in Australia reaches some progress. Australian government, he said, now used the documents such as birth certificate and school certificate to consider their age. Indonesian government always emphasizes that the Indonesian minors must be separated from the adults.
"Lately we see some progress, one of them is that they are no longer use x-ray to identify the age of the crew," the Spokesman of Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Michael Tene, said on Friday.
Until July 18, there are 415 imprisoned crew with 36 of them are minors. From September 2008 until July 2012, about 223 Indonesian minors have been sent home. They were captured as they tried to sneak into Australia by the sea.