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The Indonesians who accompany asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia are desperately poor, according to the Indonesian Solidarity network, and as a result they are willing to work for the people smugglers. In 2009, the oil leak in the Timor Sea had a severe social and economic impact on the fishing communities in West Timor, from which most of these seafarers come.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has described smuggling as an ''evil trade'' perpetrated by people ''who seek to profit from human misery''. Previously her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, described people smugglers as "the scum of the earth who can rot in hell".

The Australian Human Rights Commission indicated it was considering investigating allegations that as many as 50 Indonesian juveniles arrested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for involvement in people-trafficking were being held unlawfully in adult prisons. The estimated number of Indonesian crew held in Australian jails and detention centres for people smuggling is over 400 people.

The AFP uses a wrist X-ray process to determine the age of any crew members caught on the people smugglers' boats - but there is serious concern over the accuracy of the method, and it is believed that many of the young Indonesian 'men' being held in Australian jails are in fact teenage boys.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, the Australian and New Zealand Society for Paediatric Radiology and the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group, all condemn the use of X-rays and genital examinations to determine whether a fisherman is a juvenile. Previously Sir Al Aynsley-Green, Britain's founding Children's Commissioner, has said the AFP's use of X-rays to assess the ages of Indonesian crew members from asylum-seeker boats is ''unethical, inaccurate, not fit for [the] purpose proposed and potentially unlawful.''