Better implementation of housemaid ruling urged

JAKARTA (JP): An Indonesian Women's Congress executive has stressed the importance of improved implementation of the Jakarta Administration's housemaids welfare legislation.

"Regulation No.3/1993 is already ideal as it consists of technical instructions on how to protect and raise housemaids," Aniswati, the head of the Congress' labor section, was quoted by Antara as saying Wednesday.

The regulation, called the Housemaids Welfare Promotion in Jakarta, consists of 31 chapters which elaborate on the rights and obligations of agencies supplying housemaids, employers and housemaids.

Speaking at a one-day seminar on problems encountered by housemaids' suppliers, employers and the government, Aniswati urged the municipality to intensify its supervision to help prevent housemaids being exploited.

The seminar's 150 participants included maids' rights observers and officials from the city administration, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Manpower.

Aniswati said improved supervision was needed because many housemaids were being deprived of their rights.

The congress' chairwoman, Eny Busiri, criticized the city administration's supervision of the regulation, in which officers were deployed to go to houses where maids worked. "Such a method of supervision is intrusive and impolite," she said.

Eny said that the municipality should only be in charge of the provision of legal support to employers who are often exploited by distributors of maids.

Supplying maids had increasingly become little more than a commodity, which needed to be seriously addressed, not only by housemaids but by their employers as well, she said.

This should involve both improving maids' quality and welfare, and at the same time giving greater security to their employers, with the government acting as the arbitrator in disputes, she said.

"Housemaids play an important role in helping improve the country's economic growth, so they have to be protected. But their employers should also have their rights, including being able to get good quality maids, who are skillful and willing to stay for long periods of time," she said.

An assistant to the minister of manpower on women's labor issues, Soedarsono, said the most pressing need was to improve the development of the available human resources.

This would automatically improve the quality of maids, he said. (hhr)