Abuses against migrant workers still rampant

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Driven by her family's poverty and lured by her neighbors' success stories as migrant workers (TKIs), then-15-year-old Nur Fita, defied her dissenting parents, left her bamboo and thatch house in Blitar, East Java, in 1993, to work as a domestic helper in Singapore.

For two years she worked almost around-the-clock, seven days a week for a Singaporean family, but she and her family remained poor.

After returning home from Singapore, Nur continued her journey of hope, and illegally entered Malaysia to work in Johor without official documents.

"There were hundreds of us, illegal workers. Our 'sponsors' squeezed us into a small speedboat, heading to Johor from Tanjung Pinang in Riau province. It was dark and we spent four hours on a stormy sea to reach the Malaysian Peninsula," Nur told The Jakarta Post.

To avoid arrest by Malaysian authorities, the boat did not berth in any harbor. "We had to jump into the sea and swam for a long, long way to reach the shore. I nearly drowned, but my friend helped me. Then, for hours we had to run through a dark forest," she said.

She was finally employed in a photo studio in Johor for eight months, gaining nothing except for food and a space to lie down because her monthly salary was paid to cover the sponsorship to work in the country. "Then I thought enough was enough, I decided to go from there. So when the local police raided illegal workers, I didn't hide as usual. Later, they jailed me and others in a filthy prison for two weeks. I cry sometimes when I recall all of that," she said.

Ironically, Indonesian migrant workers, who are often referred to as the "pahlawan devisa" -- heroes of foreign exchange for the country -- always seem fall victim to greedy manipulators.

Last month, in a declaration by the Federation of Indonesian Migrant Workers Organization (FOBMI) in Jakarta, former migrant workers announced the establishment of the federation in order to put a stop to the exploitation.

In their statement, the former migrant workers said they had been the subjects of extortion and deception since their recruitment from their villages to their work places abroad and on their away home again.

Lilik from the Central Java town of Purwokerto, worked in Hong Kong for seven months and came back to Indonesia empty-handed.

In her first two weeks, she worked as a domestic helper with an employer who later could not afford to pay her. The employer sent her back to her worker agency in Hong Kong without any pay.

"I couldn't do anything. I knew nothing there. Nobody in Indonesia told me what to do if I encountered trouble like that. When I first arrived at Hong Kong airport, someone gave me some books about the regulations. But then my sponsor took it away to prevent me from understanding workers's rights," she told the Post.

Many Indonesian workers have been underpaid in Hong Kong although the local administration has been tough on labor abuses.

Her agent finally employed her. After cutting Lilik's salary for about five months -- HK$1,800 from HK$2,000 each month -- she fired Lilik. Again, Lilik couldn't do anything but took a flight back to Indonesia.

Arriving back in Indonesia is another set of problems for TKIs. As soon as they alight, vultures are ready to cash in on the workers' foreign currencies.

Many TKIs are forced to exchange their currency to rupiah with unfavorable rates. Private transportation companies take TKIs to their villages, but the bus drivers often force them to pick certain vehicles with nonnegotiable fees.

However, all those hardships do not seem to dampen the spirit and the dream of earning loads of money.