Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment

On Dec. 19 a sad case of sexual harassment once again
occurred. One of 12 Indonesian female workers who were locked up
by recruiters in Malaysia managed to escape to tell the Malaysian
police authorities of the distress which she and her 11
colleagues had to suffer.

The women were reportedly locked up, forced into prostitution
and forced to bear children. Four of them reportedly gave birth
to babies, which their captors allegedly sold for Rp 4 million to
Rp 4.5 million each.

Protests and reactions have already been coming from Bandung
and Yogyakarta and from members of the House of Representatives
in Jakarta. An expert of Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta
suggested that before their departure overseas the women be
trained in self-defense so that they would better be able to look
after themselves in the foreign land. Others suggested that the
government stop the sending of female workers to other countries
for the time being, and that the Malaysian authorities impose
severe penalties on the offenders.

We have the impression that so far the protection of the
rights of our female workers employed overseas has been very lax
and that those rights have never been explained to them clearly.
Most of those workers are not very educated and only a few of
them have made it to secondary school level. They were moved to
seek work abroad because they were jobless, were unable to finish
their schooling and found it hard to acquire employment at home
except as agricultural field laborers.

Recruiting agents seldom give workers, especially females, an
adequate explanation of their rights. Therefore, when
difficulties arise while the workers are employed abroad, few
recruiting agents are willing to take any responsibility.

All this gets our attention and is discussed only after
difficulties occur. We believe that the rules and guarantees of
the rights of those workers should be improved and explicitly
stated in their contracts of work.

-- Jayakarta, Jakarta