Protection for female workers inadequate: Seminar

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief, in a rare admission of the negative side of the sending of workers abroad, conceded yesterday that many Indonesian female workers are legally unprotected due to poor law enforcement.

"You'd shed tears if you knew what some of our sisters went through in their workplace," Latief said during a seminar to discuss the condition of women workers.

Latief said his office is doing its best in preparing a set of laws to better protect women workers as well as using a number of stopgap ministerial decrees to temporarily improve female workers' welfare.

"It's risky for us not to take immediate steps to handle the situation," he said, linking the poor protection of workers with the recent spate of labor strikes here. "While waiting for the ratification of those laws, which will take a very long time, we have to make do with lower level decrees."

Among the decrees issued by the manpower ministry to better protect women workers are on the regional minimum wage levels, on discriminatory treatment against female workers, and on dismissal of pregnant women workers.

Latief was speaking at a seminar on legal protection for women workers, which was opened by Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman and attended by some 100 people. The other speakers yesterday were Grace Joseph of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Jakarta and Martha Tilaar, a successful businesswoman.

Latief used the occasion yesterday to reiterate his call on companies that they also protect women workers' reproductive functions.

"Efforts to improve women workers' productivity through better legal protection should be conducted proportionately, by abiding the principle of non-discrimination but without neglecting the fundamental differences between men and women workers," he said.

"This is not to say that women workers have to be pampered, but certainly they have to be treated with dignity and in accordance with their kodrat (biological destiny)," he added.

The problem of poor treatment of women workers, especially abroad, is a thorn in the side for the government, which has time and again been criticized for it.

Mistreatment

Reports said many of the women become victims of mistreatment at the hands of their employers. Last December it was reported that approximately 4,000 Indonesian women working as servants in Saudi Arabia were listed as "missing" after running away from their employers.

Early this year, the government finally decided to phase out sending unskilled women workers abroad, and phase in the export of skilled workers which would also mean a more profitable venture.

During the discussion yesterday, speakers again highlighted the problem of poor enforcement of laws which protect female workers' rights and welfare.

Martha Tilaar, for instance, said that she still found many "veiled discriminations" perpetrated by her fellow entrepreneurs.

"There are companies who force prospective women workers to sign contracts stating they would not get married or pregnant during employment," she said.

Grace Joseph, while applauding Latief's initiatives to introduce decrees which will protect women, still urged that Indonesia find ways to improve law enforcement.

"You have great laws here, covering from female workers' rights to menstrual leave, maternity leave, minimum wages, and also arrangement for night shift," Joseph said. "But enforcement is still lax." (swe)