Jakarta – Indonesia had better stop sending its citizens to work as housemaids abroad because they are often treated like slaves, said a minister who claimed that the fate of these workers gave him a headache.

"I would say that we had better stop sending house helpers to foreign countries because they are often treated as modern-day slaves there," Manpower Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea said, according to an Antara news agency report.

He said the conditions in which Indonesian women workers had to work in these countries were lamentable. "A myriad of issues on their fate in foreign countries is now causing me headaches," he added.

Indonesia has more than one million workers overseas, mainly in the Middle East, Hongkong, Malaysia and Singapore. They are mostly maids or unskilled labourers doing menial jobs. There have been dozens of cases of Indonesian maids being badly treated in foreign countries.

Mr Jacob said the country faced a dilemma as unemployment kept rising owing to more people joining the workforce. But many parents who knew their children were being badly treated overseas wanted them to return home, he said.