Labor export suspension extended
Labor export suspension extended
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has extended the suspension of labor exports
indefinitely due to the mounting Iraq crisis despite strong
protests from migrant workers and labor export firms.
The director general of labor placement at the Ministry of
Manpower and Transmigration, I Gede Made Arka, declined to give
reasons for the decision, but many labor exporters said it had a
lot to do with recent developments in the Middle East.
"Whatever they (the maids) say, we will maintain the
suspension of labor exports for the time being. We want all
workers to be prepared to work overseas and to improve their
skills before leaving for overseas, especially as regards
communications," he explained here on Monday.
He said that in many cases, workers had been mistreated or had
been denied their rights because of language barriers.
"Many of those employed in the Middle East cannot speak Arabic
so that they face language barriers in seeking their rights from
their Arabic-speaking employers," he explained.
He said Indonesia needed to improve the quality of its workers
before their departure abroad to prevent them from being abused
by their employers.
The government decided early in February to suspend the supply
of Indonesian workers to the Middle East because of the mounting
tension between Iraq and the United States over the former's
alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and links with
Osama bin Laden. However, the reason given was the need to
provide an opportunity for workers to improve their skills and to
increase Indonesia's bargaining power in the international labor
market.
The suspension has been extended as the situation still
remains tense, with the U.S. administration warning that it would
go to war with or without UN support.
The government has been reluctant to give the mounting tension
as its reason for suspending labor exports so as to avoid giving
the impression that the Middle Eastern countries were unable to
protect Indonesian workers employed in the region. In addition,
the temporary suspension of labor exports has been imposed on all
countries to avoid protests from companies supplying workers to
the Middle East.
Currently, some 150,000 Indonesians, mostly women, are
employed as domestic helpers for families in the Middle East.
An association of Indonesian maids in Hong Kong criticized the
government on Sunday for extending the labor export suspension.
It said the policy would make Indonesian migrant workers less
competitive.
A. Munir, chairman of the Workers Legal Aid Institution
(LPBHI), said some 100,000 workers had left a number of labor
exporters' dormitories because of the uncertainty hanging over
their departures.
"Such cases will cost not only labor exporters but also the
workers themselves," he said.
According to Gede, the number of migrant Indonesian workers
could reach up to 2 million, of which around 1 million were in
the Middle East, about 500,000 in Malaysia and the remaining
500,000 in other countries, including the United States and the
countries of Western Europe.
Gede went on to say that the government had set March 21 as
the deadline for the Indonesian migrant labor agencies (PJTKIs)
to report on their programs to improve workers' skills.
Afterwards, the government would send out independent teams
drawn from academia to test whether the workers to be sent
overseas met the set qualifications.
"Given an independent test, we hope there will be no more
collusion between the government and the agencies in sending
unskilled workers abroad," he said.