Govt to curb illegal outflow of RI workers

Govt to curb illegal outflow of RI workers

JAKARTA (JP): The government will launch a major operation to stop Indonesian citizens leaving the country to work abroad illegally, Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief announced yesterday.

The operation would be conducted both at the major destinations of the workers and in their home provinces, Latief said.

"The Ministry of Manpower will strengthen coordination with the immigration office, the police, Indonesian embassies overseas and provincial administrations," he said after meeting with President Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office.

He said he planned to call a meeting of representatives of Indonesian embassies and consulates in Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as governors of a number of provinces. The meeting would aim, he said, to coordinate efforts to stop the smuggling of Indonesian workers to other countries.

The minister said Indonesians working illegally abroad were easy prey for exploitative employers because they did not enjoy the legal protection afforded to workers who sought work overseas through legal channels.

More than one million Indonesians are currently working abroad. Of that number, only between 600,000 and 700,000 were sent by manpower supply agencies.

Latief acknowledged that the government did not know the exact number of Indonesians working illegally abroad. "It is difficult to detect them all," he said.

But there were strong indications that people were still pursuing illegal channels to go abroad, he said.

During a recent surprise inspection on Batam island in Riau, the minister discovered a syndicate in the process of sending 60 workers across to Malaysia. Authorities in East Java recently stopped 50 Indonesians as they were boarding a plane to Hong Kong. The authorities say the 50 were planning to work in the British colony illegally.

Latief identified North Sumatra, Riau and West Kalimantan as the three provinces most often used as transit points for syndicates smuggling Indonesian workers to Malaysia.

Central Java, East Java, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi were the home provinces of most of the workers taking part in the illegal schemes, he said.

Government officials have acknowledged that the smuggling of workers has continued because of the difficulties and high costs faced by workers seeking work abroad through legal channels.

The minister acknowledged yesterday that many people were attracted to working overseas and that the high level of unemployment in Indonesia was the main reason. Indonesia had 135,000 new university graduates each year, he said, but only 40 percent of them were able to find jobs immediately.

Latief also reported to the President on the implementation of the new minimum wage regulations, effective since the beginning of this month; on the recent meeting of the governing body of the International Labor Organization in Geneva; and on the informal meeting of manpower ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which is scheduled to take place in Bangkok later this month. (rms)