Legal framework, cooperation needed to help migrant workers
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The implementation of international legal frameworks and bilateral cooperation are needed to help exploited and abused women migrant workers, a regional workshop on protecting women migrant workers in Asia said on Tuesday.
The workshop, jointly organized by the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), emphasized the implementation of international conventions, especially the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
CEDAW committee member Sjamsiah Achmad said the implementation of international conventions and an understanding of domestic legislation were important to help solve workers' problems.
"Besides legal frameworks, regional and bilateral cooperation is also significant to solve problems related to migrant workers," Sjamsiah told the conference attended by government representatives from labor-exporting countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Receiving countries like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore were conspicuously absent from the three-day conference.
Non-governmental organization activists and experts from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Jordan and South Korea also attended the workshop, which was officially opened by Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, UNIFEM regional chief Kunzang Chungyalpa said in her speech that women, who made up more than half of Asia's 20 million migrant workers, often faced exploitation and serious abuse.
"Social and cultural attitudes, combined with labor market segmentation, result in underpayment and exploitation of women workers, often exposing them to serious human rights violations," Chungyalpa said.
According to Chungyalpa, total remittances from all migrant workers to Asia's developing countries stood at around US$80 billion last year, surpassing foreign direct investment for the first time.
She said women could take pride in their economic contribution, but governments had to develop policies to ensure women were empowered to deal with vulnerable situations.
Unless social and human rights issues were addressed, she said, the ultimate social cost of migration might outweigh its economic benefits.
Alan Boulton, Jakarta director of the International Labor Organization (ILO), spoke of a "catalog of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers who contribute $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion annually in earnings to Indonesia.
"Even though there has been a vast increase over the last 10 years in the number of migrant workers, the authorities have generally failed to provide proper standards of protection for these workers," Boulton was quoted by AFP as saying.
There was still too much corruption in the various stages of the labor migration process, he said.
However, manpower ministry director general for migrant workers Gusti Made Arka argued that the government had made considerable efforts to protect migrant workers, who totaled 480,393 people last year.
Arka also revealed that recently the government had issued a joint decree signed by seven ministers to set up an advocacy team for protecting migrant workers.
Last month, the country's media headlines were marked by the return of dozens of women migrant workers from Saudi Arabia, many of whom had reportedly been unpaid, abused or raped.