Labor agencies demand protection for domestics

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta

A group of labor agencies providing domestic workers urged the Jakarta administration to rectify a regulation on domestic workers in a bid to promote labor protection amid rising reports of abuse committed by employers.

"A revision to the bylaw is urgent, especially for the workers who are recruited directly by their employers from villages," Edy Gunno, chairman of the Forum of Domestic Worker Suppliers, told reporters during a rally at City Hall on Monday.

Edy said that the workers who were recruited directly were often underpaid and usually had to work overtime, while the employers did not provide meals for live-in workers, unlike their fellow workers who were contracted through labor agencies and worked under contracts.

"We expect the revised bylaw to give clear guidelines for the administration to monitor workers as well as impose sanctions against abusive employers."

The existing Bylaw No. 6/1993 stipulates a minimum age of 18 for domestic workers, unless the workers can produce a letter of permission from their parents.

The bylaw also requires an employer to give proper meals to a live-in worker. In addition, an employer is also required to give the worker annual leave and is still required to pay his or her salary while the worker is on leave.

However, Edy said, most of the requirements are ignored by employers, a condition which is worsened by ineffective monitoring by the administration.

The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 200,000 children below the age of 18 in Greater Jakarta were working last year without legal protection, mostly as domestic workers. The ILO also estimates there are around 800,000 child workers nationwide.

On Friday, two nursemaids, Solikhah, 23, and Suprianti, 20, filed a complaint with the National Commission on Human Rights, reporting abusive treatment by their employer. They said they had been slapped, hit, and confined in the employer's house in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

The Jakarta Manpower Agency head Ali Zubeir admitted that his agency found it difficult to monitor domestic workers in the city in order to better protect their rights.

"It is difficult to monitor them one by one due their high mobility. Besides, we will face technical difficulties to check the number of domestic workers employed by a household, for instance," Zubeir told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Zubeir added that the administration was drafting a bylaw to regulate manpower in the city.

"However, we will not include the issue of domestic workers in the bylaw, but will regulate it in a gubernatorial decree," he said.