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)