Workers' relatives banned from airport

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