'Stop sending women workers to Middle East'

'Stop sending women workers to Middle East'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State Minister of Women's Empowerment Sri Redjeki Sumaryoto has
strongly urged the government to stop supplying women workers to
Middle Eastern countries as they are still treating Indonesian
women employed as domestic helpers in the region as slaves.

"Such treatment amounts to abuse and therefore, a serious
effort is needed to ensure that Indonesian women working in Saudi
Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries are treated humanely,"
the minister said in the West Nusa Tenggara provincial capital of
Mataram on Thursday.

She said she had delivered a letter to Minister of Manpower
and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea to stop temporarily the
dispatch of women workers to the Gulf countries until they
revised their rules to provide for protection of foreign workers.

Many Indonesian workers encountering difficulties with their
employers or families in Saudi Arabia could not go to court as,
according to that country's regulations, they were considered
part of their employers' extended family. Consequently, their
employment fell under the jurisdiction of that country's home
affairs ministry, instead of the labor ministry.

Sri Redjeki also suggested that workers going overseas should
be protected by legislation that threatens stiffer penalties
against any party found guilty of extorting workers or using
violence against women, especially those recruited for placement
abroad.

She said the government should ask the agencies to take
account of workers' recruitment at home and their placement
overseas.

"The sending agencies must take responsibility for any
trouble, starting with their departure to their arrival back home
again. Prior to leaving overseas, the agencies should also ensure
with their foreign counterparts that the employment of workers
will be based on a standard labor contract.

"They should have lawyers to provide legal aid for troubled
workers, including suing employers who mistreat or harass them,"
she said.

Some two million Indonesians work in the Middle East and
almost 70 percent are employed as house maids.

Over the last five years, many Indonesian women employed as
domestic helpers in the Middle East have been caned or sentenced
to death over sex scandals with their employers, while thousands
of others have left their place of employment due to being
underpaid.

The manpower and transmigration minister recently acknowledged
that hundreds of women workers who had left their employers had
become prostitutes in night clubs and entertainment centers in
the region. He also said many Indonesian women were still working
in the sex industry in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In Hong Kong, the labor law was strictly enforced but in
reality most women workers employed as domestic helpers received
salaries far lower than the minimum monthly payment as set by the
local administration.

The government has threatened not to supply women workers to
Hong Kong unless the authorities solved the problem of cutting
Indonesian workers' salaries on the island.

Sri Redjeki called on the media to expose not only the
problems experienced by overseas workers but also the success
stories, to avoid creating an unduly negative impression about
them.

"The public should not be given a biased impression on
overseas workers because the number who work without experiencing
any problems at all is far greater than those who do," he said.