'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.