Call for probe into deaths of Indonesians working abroad

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)