Protecting workers

On Monday, three young women were severely injured when they jumped out of upper-floor windows of two shop-houses in attempts to escape a privately run labor export agency in West Jakarta. Both shop-houses were owned by the agency and housed 276 women who were awaiting job placement abroad.

According to the authorities, the first two, Nikmatul Hasanah, 16, and Haryati, 17, belonged to a group of 240 women who were kept confined and incommunicado for several months in one of the company's shop-houses in Tangerang while waiting for the jobs they had been promised. The third woman, Yeti, was kept with 36 others under similar conditions in the agency's West Jakarta shop-house.

These two separate but closely related incidents involving the enforced confinement of job seekers -- one of countless times a problem of this kind has happened to Indonesians looking for employment -- provide a most dismal illustration of the deprivation millions of Indonesians are probably living in at present. One can hardly imagine any person willing to voluntarily subject him or herself to the kind of treatment the women had to endure for months were it not for the prospect of eventually landing a decent job, whether in this country or abroad.

One of the women told reporters that the company's agents in her hometown of Brebes in Central Java told her she would be employed as a housemaid in Singapore with a monthly salary of US$240. Others were told that they would be sent to either Singapore or Malaysia in two or three months.

Some of the women claimed that they were barred from leaving the premises at any time while living in confinement, the doors were locked from the outside and they were told to stay away from the windows. All important personal documents were taken from them.

One of the hiring company's executives is currently under police investigation after the women were moved to a friendlier environment resulting from complaints received by the police from the women's relatives about their premises' conditions.

Reports of similar cases in which prospective workers -- women in particular -- have been kept virtually hostage while waiting for promised jobs that never seem to materialize, have appeared from time to time with considerable regularity in the past.

There is of course nothing wrong in principle with sending workers abroad. Indeed, during the crisis, doing so would not only make it possible for thousands of Indonesians to earn a decent living abroad but also by sending home their pay, they could help make life easier for their family at home while making a positive contribution to the country's balance of trade.

Also, it must be remembered that there are good employment agents as well as bad ones and one bad case should not be allowed to tarnish the reputation of the employment agency business as a whole. Nevertheless, the fact that at least three women in these two latest cases dared to risk their lives in order to escape indicates that something must be terribly wrong.

One wonders how many more such incidents must happen before serious action is taken by the authorities. For sure, if we are resolved to continue to regard this particular trade as sound principle -- which it appears we are -- it is time we did some serious cleaning up to make sure that it benefits all on both the job providing and the job receiving ends of the deal.