Indonesian workers recount plight in Singapore

Indonesian workers recount plight in Singapore

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A modest housewife from a village in Magetan regency, East Java,
52 year-old Binarti was not a woman with many words.

But her faint tone, watery eyes and mournful expression
clearly displayed the grief of a mother whose child was facing a
life sentence in a foreign country.

Binarti's eldest daughter, Sundarti Supriyanto, a 24 year-old
domestic worker in Singapore, had been sentenced to death last
year for murdering her Singaporean employer, Angie Ng, along with
Mrs Ng's two year-old daughter Crystal, then burning their
apartment and illegally using Mrs Ng's ATM card, in June 2003.

After the Indonesian Embassy there sought clemency for
Sundarti, her sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison.

Binarti said she was not aware of the life sentence for her
daughter. It was not easy for her to understand that her own
child was capable of committing such a crime. She only hoped
somebody could do something more to further reduce Sundarti's
sentence.

"I hope the (Singaporean) government will grant (another)
clemency. I want my child to be protected," Binarti told The
Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Sundarti's case added to the long list of problems for migrant
workers, especially in Singapore, where there are approximately
45,000 Indonesians working as maids.

From 1999 to 2005, at least 114 Indonesian domestic workers
have died, mostly by falling from high story buildings.

In 2004 alone, there were 26 cases of death among Indonesian
domestic workers with causes ranging from falling from apartment
buildings (the majority), suicides, train crashes, illnesses and
drug abuse.

In the first month of this year alone, three people have
already died by falling from high buildings.

"One was killed while working, one allegedly committed
suicide, and another fell while trying to escape. She was using
scarves tied together with knots to jump down from a window,"
Indonesian Ambassador to Singapore Mochamad Slamet Hidayat told a
discussion on Singaporean migrant workers on Tuesday.

He said there were numerous other cases affecting domestic
workers in Singapore.

In 2004, the embassy provided emergency housing to 198 workers
who had ran away from their employers due to harsh treatment,
overwork, abuse, and unpaid salaries.

The Embassy also received 89 police reports in the same year
of cases of stealing involving Indonesian workers.

There were also five children born outside of wedlock, mostly
to Bangladeshi boyfriends.

Hidayat blamed problems with Indonesian maids in Singapore on
chaotic mechanisms in the recruitment processes at home.

"There is no coordination and control, the process from job
order until the issuance of passports is not integrated. Thus
identity fraud is rampant," the ambassador said.

The workers sent were young, even underaged, women with only
elementary school education and with barely any skills or job
training.

The pressure of work and difficulties adjusting to the new
environment caused psychological problems for the unskilled
workers. They are also unaware of their own rights as workers and
how to tackle abuse.

"What amazes me is how they pass the medical tests. Some of
them have tuberculosis, chronic liver and kidney disease, and
some have heart attacks in the first months they work here,"
Hidayat said.

Activist Lies Sugondo from the National Commission on Human
Rights (Komnas HAM) said domestic workers should be given
education on life skills, reproductive health and sex.

"Most of the workers have been brought up with the perception
that women are inferior to men, so they are powerless when it
comes to male employers," Lies said.

She claimed that the right to a day off work is still a luxury
for many as they have to work 24-7, and that this practice had to
be fought by the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore.

"The Embassy should gather the workers together at least once
a week to give them training," Lies added.

According to Hidayat, his embassy has been conducting monthly
training for workers there on, among other things, how to cook.

The embassy, he added, has also been giving Indonesian maids
Mandarin and English classes in anticipation of Singapore's plan
to enforce a new rule in April, which imposes English and
mathematics tests on maids.

The regulation also requires all domestic workers to be at
least 23 years old, with at least eight years of school
education.

Other programs being held by the embassy are the
implementation of an accreditation system for migrant worker
recruitment agencies, and conducting regular programs on radio
stations in Batam, Jakarta and Singapore to educate workers.

"What is urgent I guess is a one-stop-shop policy. Every
worker going to Singapore should enter through Batam. It will be
easier for us to control the process there," Hidayat said.