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.