Indonesian migrant workers continue to face ordeals

Antara News, Fardah, Saturday, December 18, 2010

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Over four million Indonesians have become migrant workers (TKI) overseas particularly in Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

Bank Indonesia (BI) has recorded that per September 2010, Indonesian migrant workers` remittances totaled 5.03 billion US dollars, up 2.44 percent from 4.91 billion US dollars in the same period last year.

Difi A Djohansyah, a spokesman of the central bank, said in Jakarta recently that per September 2010, Indonesia sent 427,000 workers abroad, down 12 percent from 479,000 workers in the same period in 2009.

With the additional workers, the total number of Indonesian workers abroad in September 2010 reached 4.32 million people.

Poverty and inadequate numbers of jobs in the country are among factors which have forced them to work overseas.

There are many happy stories, but also some sad ones. Human tragedy and suffering sometimes befall migrant workers. Several of them came back home in coffins due to illness, murder or accidents, and some domestic helpers have become disabled due to torture by their employers.

One of the notorious incidents and its legal dispute is still going on, is the case of Nirmala Bonat (23) from Kupang, West Timor, who has suffered horrific injuries caused by her employer Yim Pek Ha in Malaysia in 2004.

Bonat`s employer had beat her and pressed a hot iron on her breasts and back as punishment for mistakes in ironing clothes. Following her rescue, Bonat was treated for second and third-degree burns and she is still fighting for her rights now.

Recently Sumiati binti Salan Mustafa (24) from West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), was reported of having been pressed with a hot iron and part of her lips was cut by her Saudi Arabian employer in Madina.

The violence happened despite the Saudi workforce minister`s regulation number 1/738 dated on 16/5/1425 H, that prohibit all sorts of human trafficking, working contract violation, and inhuman and immoral treatment.

Saudi Arabia currently employs 927,500 Indonesian migrant workers, making it the second biggest user of Indonesian manpower after Malaysia.

Non-governmental organization (NGO) Migrant Care Executive Director Anis Hidayah recently said the kind of maltreatment experienced by Sumiati had frequently happened to other migrant workers but it seemed that the government did not deem it as a serious problem needing concrete action.

On the occasion of Labor Day in Jakarta in May 2010, Migrant Care called on the government to set up a national commission for Indonesian migrant workers (Komnas BMI) to handle matters related to worker protection, supervision, mediation and coordination.

In response to the Sumiati case, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last November instructed State Minister for Women`s Empowerment and Child Protection Linda Ameliasari Agum Gumelar and her team to go to Saudi Arabia to deal with violence problems.

The joint team, consisting of officials among others from the foreign affairs ministry and the manpower ministry, as well as a representative of BNP2TKI (national agency for migrant workers` protection), was tasked to monitor the condition of the victims at various hospitals, the restoration of their health, advocacy and legal protection, and secure legal process, and meet the rights of the victims.

The Sumiati torture has also revived a call for s moratorium om Indonesian female domestic helper dispatches overseas.

Twelve Islamic organizations including the largest Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah as well as smaller ones such as Al Irsyah Al Islamiyah, Al Washliyah, Al Ittihadiyah, Perti, Persis, Syarikat Islam Indonesia, PITI, Rabithah Alawiyin, Parmusi and Mathlaul Anwar, have conveyed their concern after holding a meeting at the NU headoffice in Jakarta.

The Islamic organizations called for the government to stop temporarily sending workers to countries with which it had signed no memorandum of understanding or agreement on the protection of workers.

The authorities of NTB, a major migrant worker supplier, has positively responded the moratorium call.

Speaking in Surabaya, East Java, recently, President Yudhoyono urged regional leaders to create more job opportunities to reduce the number of informal Indonesian migrant workers.

The head of state said the government, however, could not stop its people choosing jobs and locations they want to.

Yudhoyono also ordered regional government heads to check the standards of Indonesian workers (TKIs) education and of the administration system of manpower supplier companies (PJTKI) to avoid dispatches of substandard workers abroad

The head of state instructed mayors and district heads to make sure that TKI also get appropriate and adequate trainings before being sent overseas.

"If the supplier companies are professional, there will be less problems to arise. Their services must be improved, because they don`t sent goods, but human beings who have heart, so there must be no negligence," he said.

To protect migrant workers, Hikmahanto Juwana, professor of international law of the University of Indonesia, recently suggested that the Indonesian government take fundamental and strategic.

He said that there were at least three fundamental and strategic steps the Indonesian government should take. The first step is that Indonesia`s representatives abroad should really monitor the legal process taken against employers who inhumanely abused Indonesian workers.

Second, the government should be serious in handling manpower suppliers (PJTKI) which acted as agents of the workers. PJTKI should not send a worker who had the potential to be maltreated by his or her employers.

The Third, the government must be able to negotiate and conclude a bilateral agreement with the recipient countries, which should accommodate regulations on the protection and rights of workers.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar recently suggested that all manpower recruitment agencies in the country should be required to equip migrant workers with cellular phones.

The "cellular phone solution" has been criticized by various parties, as the problems faced by migrant workers are too complexes.

As a temporary measure, the government would restrict the dispatch of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia by implementing tighter selection of workers to be sent to the country, he said.

Problems related to migrant workers in Malaysia, which has reportedly reached nearly three million, have also frequently occurred.

Thousands of them, mostly working in plantations, construction works and households, have been regularly deported by the Malaysian government citing them as illegal workers.

Another serious problem facing Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, was criminalization charge, according to Mohamad Jumhur Hidayat, chairman of the National Agency for Protection and Placement of Indonesian Workers, in Mataram (NTB) last August 2010.

A number of Indonesian housemaids were brought to court for alleged violent crimes, while in fact they did it in self-defense against their employers.

"In the courts, the workers were often pronounced guilty. It`s a criminalization practice that we should be wary of," he said.

Over 300 Indonesian migrant workers are reportedly facing the death sentence in Malaysia.

Indonesia and Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, last May 2010 signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) which serves as a prerequisite to revise the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2006 on the placement and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in the neighboring country.

Indonesian Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Muhaimin Iskandar and Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein signed the LoI following a bilateral meeting between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak at the latter`s office.

In fact, early January 2010, Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa had announced the government`s determination to improve its services to protect Indonesian migrant workers abroad in 2010.

"Indonesia`s foreign ministry along with other related government agencies will set up a better legal framework to ensure that migrant workers` rights are respected properly," the minister said in his annual press statement.

He said migrant workers were contributing significantly to the national economy during their employment abroad.

Last December 2009, Indonesia had declared its commitment to be a party to the UN convention on protection of migrant workers.

Perhaps Indonesia could learn from India, also a major migrant worker supplier, in protecting migrant workers.

Indian President Pratibha Patil last November in Dubai opened a counseling centre for Indians working in the United Arab Emirates.

The Indian Workers Resource Centre (IWRC), which is apart from giving assistance including counseling, provides a 24-hour helpline for workers and also manages a shelter for the runaway housemaids in the UAE, where an estimated 1.7 million Indians work.

Concrete actions are immediately needed to help around 0.1 percent (of Indonesia`s 4 million migrant workers), who are facing problems.

"However, we must not underestimate it although it`s just 0.1 percent. It should be handled properly. Ambassadors and consul generals must be responsible for TKI in the countries of their jurisdiction," he said.