Airport extortion of workers slammed

Airport extortion of workers slammed

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Commission on the Protection of Women (Komnas
Perempuan) slammed the immigration office on Friday over
continued exploitation of returning Indonesian migrant workers
(TKI).

Komnas Perempuan secretary-general Kamala Chandrakirana urged
the immigration office to scrap checkpoints specially set up to
serve returning migrant workers at international airports.

"Although by design, the checkpoints provide special services
to migrant workers, in practice, they are used by immigration
officers to exploit the workers. Such a practice could be
categorized as an abuse of human rights," Kamala told The Jakarta
Post on Friday.

She argued that the existence of special checkpoints for
migrant workers at international airports institutionalized the
exploitation of migrant workers in Indonesia.

"To avoid exploitation, returning workers should be treated
like any other Indonesians coming back from an overseas trip,"
she said.

As many as 738,000 Indonesians work overseas, sending US$1.1
billion annually to their family members back home. The
government hopes to raise it to $5 billion in 2005.

Despite their contribution to the country's foreign reserves,
Indonesian workers are not given sufficient legal protection when
they work overseas and when they return home.

Many of them experience torture, rape, and arbitrary
punishment while they are abroad and are robbed by corrupt
immigrant officers at the airports when they return home.

Another Komnas Perempuan member Mely G. Tan stressed that
stopping the exploitation of migrant workers by immigration
officers should not be so difficult as it only involved a few
people at airport checkpoints.

"It is very odd that the government cannot not stop such
practices. The government should be serious in giving protection
to them, not only wanting foreign exchange from them," Mely
stressed.

Mely said recruitment companies should be required to provide
protection to migrant workers.

"The companies receive a lot of money from migrant workers, so
they should also be obliged to prevent any exploitation at the
airports."

Kamala proposed that an independent body be established to
give protection to migrant workers as the manpower ministry has
clearly failed to carry out its job.