House blasts labor export management

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives blamed yesterday the high number of Indonesian illegal workers in Saudi Arabia on the government's poor management of labor export.

Legislator Samsoedin, who led a team to Saudi Arabia last month, told a House plenary session that poor teamwork among related government offices had caused excessive problems ranging from recruitment to the placement of workers in the kingdom.

"We found that the lack of coordination among the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Justice and the office of the State Minister of Women's Roles led to visa abuses, illegal brokerage and counterfeit of immigration documents at the expense of the workers," Samsoedin said.

Samsoedin said during the five-day trip to Saudi Arabia, the team also discovered that Indonesian workers usually lost contacts with their exporting companies and the Indonesian Embassy there.

"There is no accurate data on how many and where the workers are. Consequently, it's difficult for the Indonesian Embassy to provide legal aid to legal workers, not to mention illegal ones," Samsoedin said.

An estimated 600,000 Indonesians are legally working in Saudi Arabia. Eighty-five percent of them are women, mostly working as housemaids. Most of the Indonesian workers abroad are in Malaysia, totaling some 1.5 million.

The House team of eight stayed in the Arabian oil-rich country from Nov. 11 to Nov. 16 in the aftermath of the Saudian government's crackdown on illegal workers that forced the Indonesian government to repatriate 24,000 people.

Criticism over the government's failure to protect Indonesian workers in Saudi Arabia escalated when an illegal female worker Nasiroh faced execution shortly after her compatriot Soleha Anam Kadiran was beheaded after being found guilty of murder.

Nasiroh escaped the death penalty only after the government intervened.

The House suggested yesterday that the government tighten its control over worker exporting companies, enhance the skills of workers to be sent abroad and appeal to Saudia Arabia to sign a memorandum of understanding on the export of workers.

Another House recommendation was to curb the export of unskilled workers. "The sending of housemaids must be gradually phased out and stopped," Samsoedin said. (amd)