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.