Steps to protect workers 'slow compared to promotion'

Steps to protect workers 'slow compared to promotion'

JAKARTA (JP): The government's schedule for ratifying
international conventions, including those on the protection of
migrant workers, over the next few years was too slow compared to
the aggressive promotion of the use of Indonesian workers
overseas, an activist said Thursday.

Salma Safitri, a researcher at Solidaritas Perempuan (Women's
Solidarity), a nongovernmental organization promoting migrants'
rights, said the government should immediately ratify the 1990
Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers
and Members of their Families.

The government's timetable, she said, "contradicts the
measures of the Ministry of Manpower, which had held a road show
to several countries to promote Indonesian workers."

The Director General of Labor Placement at the Ministry of
Manpower, Din Syamsuddin, recently returned from a trip to
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Twenty
labor supply companies accompanied Syamsuddin on the trip.

Salma, speaking on the sidelines of a workshop of migrant
workers, said such measures meant that the use of migrant
Indonesian workers was being promoted while their rights to
protection were far from guaranteed.

In Singapore Din had said workers also lacked preparations
regarding the countries where they would work. The ministry has
stopped the sending of workers to Singapore pending clarification
of their protection by labor supply agencies, while five
Indonesian workers are suing their employers there for rape.

At a seminar on conventions of the International Labor
Organization on Wednesday, officials spoke about the government's
plans to ratify the conventions, including a few which are
scheduled to be ratified in 2003.

The Thursday workshop was attended by 130 migrant workers and
former migrants workers, mostly women, held by Solidaritas
Perempuan (Women's Solidarity) in conjunction with International
Migrants' Day which falls on Friday.

The organization also issued a release which pointed to the
increase of illegal migrant workers since the economic crisis
began. An example of this is the 6,000 workers who have attempted
to reach Malaysia by boat over the past three months. The illegal
border crossing is extremely risky, Women's Solidarity stated.

Meanwhile, Women's Solidarity noted that Malaysia, which is
also facing an economic crisis, is seeking to deport 900,000
migrant workers, mostly from Indonesia. During the deportation
process in March, eight migrant workers and one Malaysian police
officer were killed in a riot at a detention camp for illegal
workers. The identities of the Indonesian fatalities had never
been revealed, Women's Solidarity said.

The workshop, Salma said, featured recounted experiences from
migrant workers from various regencies in West Java, Lampung and
West Nusa Tenggara, and discussions on labor regulations and the
1990 convention.

The event was aimed at raising workers' awareness of the need
for legal protections of their rights, she said. The activists
and workers plan to hold a rally on Friday at the Ministry of
Manpower to demand better protection, including ratification of
the convention on the protection of migrant workers.

Existing regulations, Salma said, were decrees from the
Ministry of Manpower which in reality were not followed by other
government offices and agencies. Also, regulations still stress
the mechanisms of sending workers abroad and do not adequately
address workers' protection.

A number of workers had brought their infants to the event,
who they said were fathered by employers or sons of employers who
raped them.

The husband of one woman who was allegedly raped told The
Jakarta Post that he was not angry with his wife, "because she
was forced" into sex. The farmer from Cianjur, who requested
anonymity, said that he and his wife were still trying to get
compensation from the employer in Saudi Arabia. He said that he
did not know if his wife would again seek employment overseas,
adding he was raising the son conceived during her overseas
employment as his own. (anr)