Sorry lot of migrant workers

I feel both deeply saddened and concerned to witness so many Indonesian women migrant workers returning home after experiencing so much suffering. I would be all the more concerned to find that many Indonesian women migrant workers are missing or lost their lives in Saudi Arabia without the Indonesian government being able to effectively monitor their stay there.

That is why I fully support manpower minister Fahmi Idris when he stipulates that Indonesians wishing to work abroad must sign work agreements. A work agreement may protect a migrant workers and prevent him or her from being ill-treated by an employer, who may be taken to court for violating the agreement.

In this context, I find it hard to understand why the Saudi Arabian embassy in Indonesia cannot issue a visa to an Indonesian migrant worker already under a work agreement. It means the Saudi Arabian government condones harmful practices undertaken by Saudi Arabian citizens against citizens of other countries.

Allow me in this letter to express my thanks to the Saudi Arabian government for its donation (dates and goat meat) to Indonesia's poor as an expression of fellow Muslims' solidarity. However, are the actions of the Saudi Arabian government and people toward Indonesian women migrant workers in line with the good teachings of Islam, as explained in the Koran? I leave it to your judgment.

SUHARSONO HADIKUSUMO

Jakarta