Cooperation needed over migrant workers saving
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
International cooperation among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is needed to campaign for the importance of savings and investment for migrant workers, an activist says.
Speaking at the international conference on Migrant Savings, Alternative Investment (MSAI) for Community Development and Reintegration, labor activist Wahyu Susilo stressed the need for cooperation.
"NGOs in labor-exporting countries and destination countries should cooperate to help migrant workers," said Wahyu, secretary of the Coalition for Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection (Kopbumi).
He suggested NGOs in destination countries convince migrant workers, while NGOs in sending countries approach workers' families to campaign for the need for savings and investment for their future.
Wahyu said, "Most of their remittance is used consumptively. They just earn money abroad and spend it. Nothing is saved."
Indonesian workers send a total of US$2.8 billion in remittance to their family members back home annually.
Another labor activist, Lily Purba, said women migrant workers, whose number accounts for more than half of the country's four million migrant workers, suffered the most as they could neither access nor control their remittance.
"Almost all their remittance is controlled by their husbands or family members," Lily said at the seminar which was jointly organized by the Hong Kong-based Asian Migrant Center (AMC) and the Indonesian Committee for Reintegration (ICORE).
She revealed that many cases had been reported of the remittance of female migrant workers allegedly being used by their husbands to marry other women.
She said that the remittance was also used by their parents to support the needs of the whole family, such as financing the education of their younger brothers and sisters, as most of them came from very poor families.
"So, any campaign for savings and investment among female migrant workers may come up against resistance from their husbands or their families," Lily said.
She suggested that NGOs in countries of origin and employment agencies should convince the workers' families that savings and investments programs would benefit not only the workers, but their families in the future.
Dozens of local activists and activists from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines attended the four-day conference.
Activist Rex Verona of the Philippines revealed that NGOs in his country had managed to set up several projects, mostly in agriculture, using the remittance of their migrant workers.
"Like in Indonesia, we also receive no help from the government. But cooperation among NGOs helped the migrant workers," said Verona, who is also a staff member of AMC.
He said that the NGOs cooperated with their counterparts in countries of employment, such as Hong Kong, in arranging savings and investment projects for migrant workers.
Last week, another international workshop on protecting female migrant workers stressed the need for international cooperation in helping exploited and abused migrant workers.