Women workers left behind by globalization<\/p>\n
Ati Nurbaiti, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
A steady inflow of foreign exchange totaling approximately
\nUS$1 billion from Indonesia's migrant workers in 2002 alone has
\nled to the state's complicity in the violation of its citizens'
\nhuman rights.<\/p>\n
The contribution came from 465,485 workers, mostly
\n\"unskilled,\" meaning a large portion of them are women in
\nhousehold and child care services. The contribution of hundreds
\nof thousands of undocumented men and women goes unrecorded.<\/p>\n
Even on International Migrant Workers Day on Dec. 21 reports
\nreached the public of abused women seeking work overseas.<\/p>\n
Following New Years' Day over 200,000 migrant workers
\nincluding some 70,000 from Indonesia protested in Hong Kong
\nagainst plans to tax their income.<\/p>\n
The reports on Dec. 21 revealed that some 1,000 women aiming
\nto work overseas were being virtually detained at a overseas
\nworker agency compound in Tangerang, a similar story to many over
\nthese years, where abuse begins at the recruitment phase.<\/p>\n
On the same day in Karawang, West Java, officials and
\ncommunity leaders read out letters from migrant workers to
\nneighbors and relatives, in commemoration of International
\nMigrant Workers Day. The letters brought news of longing, of
\nsuffering but also optimism that comes from hearing success
\nstories of other migrants, moreso if they are from the same
\nvillage. Stories of abuse, rape and even unnatural deaths have
\nfailed to deter women from seeking jobs overseas for the sake of
\ntheir children and families.<\/p>\n
West Java is among the country's main sending provinces of
\nmigrant workers to the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore and other
\ncountries, and the fact that among the poorest villages are in
\nthis province helps explain the phenomenon since the mid 1980s.<\/p>\n
It is shocking that for some 20 years, workers have merely
\ncited \"fate\" or God, or themselves, for either success or
\nmisfortune, or death, despite the high regularity in the
\nrecruitment and sending of overseas labor.<\/p>\n
Governments are left to bilateral agreements and diplomatic
\nbickering as regional mechanisms to protect workers so far are
\nnot functioning, if any -- even though countries within Southeast
\nAsia alone are both sending and receiving countries of migrant
\nworkers. Last year's deportation of some 300,000 undocumented
\nIndonesian workers from Malaysia was a glaring recent example as
\nthe Association of Southeast Asian Nations did nothing to
\nintervene.<\/p>\n
The alarming consistency of the stories of abuse runs parallel
\nwith the constant flow of foreign exchange that these migrant
\nworkers have been sending back to Indonesia, apart from
\nalleviating the state's burden of unemployment.<\/p>\n
Workers returning from the Middle East via Colombo, Sri Lanka
\nlast month cited similar stories to those heard since the 1980s
\n-- horrendous work conditions in which workers are isolated and
\nare not even allowed to go out to the market, working as the only
\nmaid for up to 18 people in a three-story household, with work
\nhours from dawn to midnight, not to mention beatings at the hands
\nof agencies (Indonesians and nationals in the host countries) and
\nemployers, for trivial mistakes such as talking too loudly or
\nletting the veil slip from the face.<\/p>\n
\"I am not going back again,\" one woman on a Colombo-Jakarta
\nflight said, who had initially hoped for a monthly wage of over
\nRp 1 million (US$110). \"Not if they treat people like animals.\"
\nAt meal times during her stay at the agency, she said the staff
\nhad distributed mere rice and porridge-like food \"as you would to
\nyour dog or chickens\".<\/p>\n
Another young woman, Wati, returning from Bahrain, said, \"I've
\nnot reached my goals to work for two years at least, and I'm
\ngoing back, who knows, maybe I'll get a good employer.\" She only
\nknows that she was sent back after three months for a minor eye
\nproblem. The women said it was \"customary\" to give the wages of
\nthe first one or two months to the agency, thus workers returning
\nhome after a few months had almost nothing to show for their
\ntroubles.<\/p>\n
With \"globalization\" the flow of workers from one country to
\nanother is supposed to bring better welfare to all involved; less
\nobstacles are expected, and many among some 8,000 computer
\nprogrammers in Bangalore, India's \"Silicon Valley\", are still
\neyeing the U.S. despite the recent dotcom collapse.<\/p>\n
How the flow of domestic workers and their welfare will be
\naffected remains unclear. So far, the sectors listed under the
\nGeneral Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), an agreement under
\nthe World Trade Organization on services, does not mention their
\nline of work -- most likely because housework and child care is
\n\"unskilled\" from the point of view of the market. Reports of
\nabuse remain rampant with little sign of improvement.<\/p>\n
A recent two-week course on globalization in Bangalore, India,
\nhighlighted the assumption dominating economic schools -- that
\nthe only things with value are those on the market, while those
\nin the \"private\" domain, such as housework, have no value.<\/p>\n
\"An economist once said that the country's total gross
\ndomestic product would go down if he married his housekeeper,\"
\nRachel Kurian, the course convener, said.<\/p>\n
She cited a 1995 Human Development Report by the United
\nNations Development Program, that work outside of that valued by
\nthe market -- mostly women's work in the home -- reached a value
\nof US$9 trillion, or three fourths of the world's gross domestic
\nproduct. Such estimates are based, for instance, on the cost of
\npaying for your laundry or meals.<\/p>\n
The view that such work has no market value -- thus no worth
\nand dignity -- translates into the rampant ease in trampling on
\nthe rights of women even when they are clearly workers, despite
\nthe fact that minimum wages are ensured in the labor laws even
\nfor migrant workers such as in Hong Kong and Singapore.<\/p>\n
Obviously, the continued enthusiasm of the women seeking such
\nwork overseas is because of the undervaluation of housework in
\nIndonesia itself and the abuse which comes with it. With domestic
\nworkers being paid Rp 300,000 or less -- compared to at least Rp
\n700,000 for drivers -- promises that they would earn at least Rp
\n1 million overseas continues to attracts aspiring villagers.<\/p>\n
This explains the continued determination of the women
\nreleased from the above \"detention\" in Tangerang. \"I'll seek a
\nbetter agency through which I can go to work overseas,\" one said.<\/p>\n
Here, domestic workers are \"maids\" and are hence not even
\nworkers with rights such as those written in the contracts for
\nmigrant domestic workers. The recognition, with much higher
\nwages, escapes critics of the policy to send domestic workers
\nabroad; housewives are also among those who say that at least \"we
\ntreat maids as family and don't rape and kill\" the women, nor
\nwould they continuously have accidents and fall off while wiping
\nwindows of fifth-story apartments working in Indonesian homes.<\/p>\n
But being \"family\" means that outsiders cannot interfere on
\nhow much a maid is paid and how long she must work. Again fate
\ndetermines a maid's welfare. Recognition of maids as workers has
\nbarely had a head start in this \"reform\" era.<\/p>\n
A breakthrough would be the set up in 2001 of the Indonesian
\nMigrant Workers Union in Hong Kong, mostly comprising domestic
\nworkers.<\/p>\n
Yet this is still unthinkable in the country; activists have
\nnot been able to link their campaigns for migrant workers to
\nlocal domestic workers, perhaps given the seemingly unbreakable
\nfeudal wall of maids being part of family affairs.<\/p>\n
In Bangalore, the president of the domestic workers' union, an
\nelderly woman called Sarojamma, related how she and her
\ncolleagues felt a big difference after they gained recognition of
\nbeing workers.<\/p>\n
Maids here do not face India's caste system -- yet amid the
\nglobalization hype urging for more flexible mobility of workers
\nacross borders, with all the rosy promises, Indonesian domestic
\nworkers will be largely left on their own -- unless the movement
\nof their sisters in Hong Kong starts to spread.<\/p>\n
The writer participated in the above mentioned refresher
\ncourse titled \"Globalization and labor, social movements and
\nwomen: A human rights perspective\" in Bangalore, India from Dec.
\n4 -18. It was organized by The Hague-based Institute of Social
\nStudies and the Bangalore-based Indian Social Institute.<\/p>",
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