Call for probe into deaths of Indonesians working abroad

JAKARTA (JP): About 50 people rallied at the Ministry of Manpower yesterday to demand a government investigation into the suspicious deaths of Indonesians working overseas.

Labor activists and relatives of workers who had died overseas demanded better legal protection for Indonesian migrant workers.

They said they had a list of 499 Indonesian workers who had died working overseas since 1991. Their bodies were returned to relatives without sufficient explanation of causes of death.

Calling themselves the Consortium of Indonesian Migrant Workers Defenders, the protesters asked the ministry to take responsibility for the deaths and relatives' anguish.

"Why has nobody taken responsibility for my daughter's death? It's been six months now since her death and all the government officials I have met for an explanation have said they were busy," cried the mother of Siti Rofiah, a housemaid who died last February in her employer's home in Saudi Arabia.

The protesters were received by the ministry's director for labor standards, Amrinal B., because Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief had other commitments.

More than one million mostly unskilled Indonesians work in more affluent countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and the Middle East.

"Don't they pity a poor woman like me?" said the mother dressed in black and a Moslem head scarf. She had come all the way to Jakarta from Karawang, West Java.

The official explanation for her daughter's death was that she had jumped to her death from the balcony of her employer's house.

The protesters put on a performance, carrying a mock coffin and burning incense which is often burned at funerals.

They sang melancholy songs and cried to make the mock funeral sound real.

The coffin carried the inscription, "Where's your responsibility for our deaths?"

A woman said her husband's death in Singapore last March had plunged her family's future into uncertainty.

"My husband's unexplained death has plunged us into darkness," said the modestly dressed woman who was carrying her three-year- old daughter. She had come all the way from her home in Lampung.

One protester said that, when he received his wife's body, he had been told that she had committed suicide in Singapore.

"I was told that my wife Sutarmi Samin had hung herself... but I am sure she was killed," said the man tearfully, holding his three and a half-year-old daughter.

Activists unfurled banners bearing slogans such as "Stop Exporting Women Workers," "Stop Selling Humans," "Stop Women Workers Anguish" and "New Labor Bill Does Not Protect Migrant Workers".

The protesters, mostly dressed in black, bore many photographs of dead migrant workers.

The picture of Sutarmi Samin, 18, was the most graphic. It showed her with her tongue sticking out and a rope tied around her neck. The picture had a caption saying, "Sutarmi died in Singapore this year."

There was also a picture of Akhmad Mufti, 24, a migrant who "died in a traffic accident" in Malaysia this year. His body was mailed back in a box.

They did not explain how they got the photographs and there was no way to verify their originality.

One of the activists accompanying the protesters, Tati Krisnawaty, said: "We are very sad about the accounts and we are angry with the government because it has done little to improve the situation.

"We believe there are currently hundreds of thousands of our migrant workers who may be going through hardships right now."

Amrinal promised to refer their concerns to minister Abdul Latief.

The demonstrators, including human rights campaigner H.J.C. Princen, said they would return in greater number to meet the minister. (aan)