Protect our workers

Protect our workers

Once again, it has taken a tragic death to focus our attention
on the fate which so many of our workers must endure to provide a
decent livelihood for themselves and their families. Soleha Anam
Kadiran, a domestic helper hailing from East Java, was reported
beheaded by sword in a western region of Mecca in Saudi Arabia
recently. An Islamic court had found her guilty of having killed
a Saudi woman with an ax.

While beheading by sword may sound to many of us like a
particularly harsh form of capital punishment, it is the form of
punishment prescribed for the crime committed by the laws of the
land in which it occurred, and must be respected. Moreover, it
can be argued that this particular form of implementing the death
penalty is no more harsh than, say, execution by hanging,
electrocution or even lethal injection.

In any case, more than the execution itself, it was the
apparent initial lack of concern -- or perhaps it was a lack of
information or communication -- on the part of our own officials,
particularly at the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh, that shocked
the nation into recognizing the lamentable conditions in which
many of our workers overseas must endure. Soleha died in a
strange land, apparently unattended by any of her friends or
relatives, or even fellow compatriots. Indeed, were it not for a
little news item carried by a foreign wire agency, Indonesians at
home might never have been aware of Soleha's tragic fate.

Fortunately, Soleha's sacrifice has not been entirely in vain.
Now the specter of death by beheading hangs over another
Indonesian domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, Nasiroh binti
Karnudin, who is accused of having shot her employer in
September, 1994. The labor recruiting company which sent her
there has already confirmed the case and has promised to do its
best to help her. Although the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh has
yet to obtain full information regarding the case, at least the
indications are that better coordination is in place. The
government's decision to send Air Force transport aircraft to
pick up and repatriate around 9,000 illegal Indonesian workers
from Saudi Arabia is another indication that the authorities are
doing their best to take care of Indonesian workers overseas.

Certainly, this assumption of responsibility by Indonesian
authorities and by the companies concerned deserve to be lauded.
Still, a good deal more must be done if the working and living
conditions of our migrant workers overseas are to see any real
improvement. One of the main deficiencies so far seems to concern
legal protection. Laws to protect the rights of workers, both
migrant or domestic, exist in most host countries which receive
our workers. However, since legal systems differ, bilateral
arrangements might still be the most effective way to achieve
optimal protection.

Protection for workers, of course, is also provided by
international conventions such as those drawn up by the
International Labor Organization and by the United Nations in
1990. It would be wise for this country to seriously consider
becoming a signatory to those conventions. The role which our
migrant workers play to support this country's economy is well
enough recognized. As such, they certainly deserve to get the
best possible protection we can provide.