Workers' relatives banned from airport

JAKARTA: The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration has declared the special terminal for arriving migrant workers at the Soekarno-Hatta airport off-limits for family members hoping to greet them and take them home.

Director General of Workers Protection and Advocacy Mardjono said on Wednesday the new policy was aimed at curbing rampant cases of extortion and cheating at the terminal reported by migrant workers.

"In the end, it is the ministry, which will be blamed at home or in international forums," Mardjono said.

The widespread extortion of arriving Indonesian migrant workers was one of the key issues deliberated upon during the International Labor Organization meeting in Tokyo recently, Mardjono said. "No such cases of extortion, however, were seen by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when visited the terminal last Saturday," Mardjono argued.

He said extortion was made possible because many people, who claimed to be relatives of migrant workers, were allowed to enter the terminal. -- Antara