RI concerned for Malaysia illegals

RI concerned for Malaysia illegals

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta

Foreign minister Hassan Wirayuda has reminded Malaysia, which
plans to deport up to 1.2 million illegal workers, mostly
Indonesians, that it must abide by a bilateral memorandum of
understanding (MOU) on labor recruitment signed by the two
countries in May.

"There are certain arrangements that both governments agreed
upon regarding the deportation of illegal migrants, so we can do
it properly," Hassan said on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Manpower estimates that there are 500,000
illegal Indonesian workers and 580,000 legal workers currently
working in Malaysia.

Malaysian home minister Azmi Khalid announced on Monday that
the country would deploy about 400,000 volunteers to help round
up about 1.2 million illegal workers.

While acknowledging Malaysia's right to crack down on illegal
workers, Hassan also cited the importance of reducing the
negative impacts of the deportation.

He further cited that to speed up the deportation process,
Indonesia was ready to deploy naval ships to bring the workers
home.

"There are points in the agreement like cost-sharing and
gradual deportation, and we expect it to be conducted within the
framework," the minister added.

However, the MOU does not appear to explicitly mention
deportation.

According to the MOU, which was signed by Minister of Manpower
and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea and his Malaysian counterpart
Fong Chan Oan, Malaysian employers, as of Aug. 10, will be
obliged to hire Indonesian workers only from authorized
Indonesian labor recruitment companies. The recruited workers
must have undergone training prior to recruitment. They may work
there up to 10 years.

In the past, Malaysian firms arranged recruitment themselves.
Most Indonesians there are employed in the palm oil and
construction sectors.

Nuwa Wea said in May that the two countries also agreed to the
deportation of some 500,000 illegal workers to Indonesia.

"Their deportation will be conducted gradually, and we may ask
the Malaysian government to share the expense with us," Nuwa Wea
said at the time.

Malaysia often conducts massive crackdowns on migrant workers,
since it introduced its harsh Immigration Law in August 2002.

In 2002, many Indonesian illegal migrant workers became
stranded in Nunukan, East Kalimantan, after 200,000 of them fled
Malaysia to escape arrest and subsequent caning.

The Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia started taking steps to
address the issue after the Malaysian government announced early
this week that it would be deporting illegal foreign workers.

"We have been preparing for the possible massive deportation,
as we need to furnish them with documents before they leave
Malaysia," the head of the information bureau at the Indonesian
Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Budhi Rahardjo, told The Jakarta Post by
phone.

He said the embassy did not have an estimation of how many
Indonesians had entered Malaysia illegally in the past year and
that the office had only recorded around 240,000 Indonesian
living in Malaysia.

"That number is the only reference we have, as it was the
number of people registered to vote in the past election. We
don't know the exact number of Indonesians living here," the
official said.