Envoy vows to help probe Indonesian worker abuse case
Envoy vows to help probe Indonesian worker abuse case
JAKARTA (JP): Palestinian Ambassador Ribbi Awad vowed on
Thursday to help investigate the alleged abuse of a teenage
Indonesian migrant worker by her employers and labor agency in
Gaza.
"So far, I haven't received any information about it. But, for
sure I am doing my best to help investigate the case," Ribbi told
The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview.
"Our government will take all necessary steps not to let
similar incidents to occur again,"
He said neither he nor the Palestinian government could accept
the treatment allegedly meted out to Mela Indahsari.
He said Palestinians highly respected Indonesians.
"One drop of Indonesian blood is the same with that of a
Palestinian."
Ribbi said he had not visited the young woman, who is now at
the National Police R.S. Soekanto Hospital in Kramatjati, East
Jakarta.
"I didn't know that she is already here now," he said.
Mela, 14, reportedly sustained repeated abuse from her
employers and labor agency in Gaza from the outset of her
contract in March. She broke her legs after falling from the
third floor apartment of her fourth employer when she tried to
flee.
Instead of earning the contracted wage of US$125 (about Rp 1
million at the current rate), Mela spent the last two months at
Al Gaza Hospital in Gaza.
An operation was performed without her consent and a catheter
inserted to help her urinate.
Her lawyer Munir Achmad from the Legal Aid Institute for
Indonesian Migrant Workers (LPBHTKI) said the operation was to
insert a metal plate along her damaged spine.
Amar Makruf, third secretary of information, social and
cultural affairs at the Indonesian Embassy to Tunisia, which also
covers Palestine and Libya, said he had yet to receive
information about Mela's case.
"We have no data on migrant workers in Palestine. We'll first
look for information through the Palestinian Embassy here as we
never have direct contact with the government," he said by
telephone from Tunis.
Munir said the many reports of abuse of Indonesian workers
abroad showed Indonesian embassies were "timid" in handling such
cases and preferred to maintain good bilateral relations instead
of fighting for the rights of their citizens.
Munir, who often travels abroad to handle cases of migrant
workers, accused some officials of embassies of enriching
themselves through the workers' plight.
"I'm a witness to several cases that embassy officials made
money from the distraught workers. They asked for money from the
agencies here and abroad, saying that it would be used to pay for
the tickets to transport the workers home," he said.
"While the workers were also asked to work for a certain
period of time to finance the tickets themselves."
Separately, LPBHTKI disclosed that an Indonesian migrant
worker in Hong Kong, Purwanti Katiman, 23, is believed to have
committed suicide last Friday.
The institute said in a written statement dated May 23 that
the worker from Ponorogo in East Java apparently jumped from her
employer's eight-floor apartment.
"According to her agency, she still was in contact with the
agency hours before the suicide. She asked why she vomited so
often and felt dizzy," the statement said.
Hong Kong Police are investigating her death. Purwanti's body
is at the Universal Funeral Parlor in Kowloon and will be flown
to Surabaya next Thursday. (ind)