RI and Malaysia to revise MoU on migrant workers

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Although the Malaysian government has agreed to continue accepting Indonesian workers, future recruitment should be based on a government-to-government basis and not rely solely on recruiting agents, said a senior official on Wednesday.

Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Hadi Wayarabi Alhadar told reporters, after a meeting with Vice President Hamzah Haz on Wednesday, that the terms would be included in a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU), which was first signed by the two governments in 1996.

In the new MOU, the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, along with the Indonesian embassy, will closely watch the recruiting and placement process of Indonesian migrant workers.

Currently, the recruitment and placement of workers is conducted by private agents.

A ministerial level joint committee between the two countries will be held on Feb. 18 in Malaysia, and will discuss the revised MOU.

Hadi said the Malaysian government would only employ Indonesian workers as domestic helpers or for work on plantations.

The ambassador told the Vice President in the meeting that there had been no more rioting involving Indonesian workers and that order had been restored.

"The perpetrators have been brought to court, we are observing them closely," Hadi said.

Four Indonesian workers were sentenced to 30 months for inciting a violent protest over drug tests at Nilai industrial estate in the state of Negeri Sembilan on Jan. 17. Each of those who participated in the riot had their initial jail sentences reduced by 10 months to six months imprisonment.

More violence involving Indonesian workers took place at Cyberjaya, a hi-tech suburb south of Kuala Lumpur, just three days after the Nilai incident.

There are currently 568,000 legal Indonesian workers in Malaysia, Hadi said, 360,000 of them are employed as domestic helpers and plantation workers.

Hadi denied reports that many more Indonesian workers were about to be deported, saying their employers might extend their contracts.

In response to Malaysia's labor policy, chairman of the Association of Labor Export Companies (Apjati) Abdulla Umar said that Indonesian workers could do more than just be recruited as domestic helpers.

"The Malaysian government seems to ignore the skills of Indonesian workers in many other fields," Abdulla said, as quoted by Antara.