Puan Hammers It Through Parliament: Minimum Age for Domestic Workers Set at 18 Years, and Here Are Their Duties
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Puan Maharani, has officially approved the Domestic Workers Protection Act (PPRT). One of the crucial points regulated is the recruitment requirements for workers, including the minimum age and mandatory documents that must be fulfilled.
In the regulation, the government stipulates that prospective domestic workers must be adults. This is stipulated in Article 5, which states:
“Requirements for prospective domestic workers recruited as follows: a. minimum age of 18 (eighteen) years; b. possessing an electronic resident identity card; and c. possessing a health certificate from a health facility,” writes Article 5.
This provision also closes loopholes in child labour practices in the domestic sector, which have often escaped supervision. In addition, this regulation affirms that the status of domestic workers is formal employment that must meet administrative standards.
Not only that, the recruitment scheme is also regulated in more detail. Domestic workers can be recruited directly by the employer or through a placement company (P3RT).
“Recruitment of domestic workers is carried out as follows: a. directly; and b. indirectly,” states Article 4 paragraph (1).
With the approval of this regulation, the government aims to ensure that the recruitment process runs transparently and is no longer solely based on informal relations, such as the familial practices that have been common.
Domestic Workers’ Duties at Home
The approval of the Domestic Workers Protection Act (PPRT) not only regulates rights and obligations but also clarifies the scope of work that domestic workers may perform within the household.
In Article 10, the government clearly details the types of work that fall under domestic work. Some of them include:
“The scope of domestic work includes:
Cooking
Washing and ironing clothes;
Cleaning the house;
cleaning the yard and/or garden;
caring for children
In addition, the duties of domestic workers may also include caring for family members up to other additional tasks:
Caring for the sick, the elderly…
Driving;
Guarding the house;
Caring for pets; and/or j. other work agreed upon
However, this regulation also emphasises that the type of work must be agreed upon jointly between the domestic worker and the employer, so that there is no exploitation of tasks outside the initial agreement.
The explanation in the regulation even emphasises that one domestic worker does not have to perform all tasks at once, but rather adjusted to the employment agreement.
With these limitations, the government aims to avoid the practice of “miscellaneous tasks without limits” that domestic workers have often experienced.