Benget Simbolon Tnb., Jakarta – The government is yet to take serious action to protect migrant workers overseas despite recurring cases of their ill treatment by recruiters and employers, a seminar concluded Thursday.

The government's failure to provide adequate legal protection to Indonesian migrant workers was the focus of the one-day seminar organized by the Habibie Center.

The seminar was held in conjunction with the launch of a book, Development, Migration and Security in East Asia, by Dewi Fortuna Anwar.

Human rights activist Edwin Partogi said between 2001 and 2004, about 1,000 Indonesian migrant workers had gone missing abroad.

"Most of them hailed from West Java, East Java and West Nusa Tenggara," he said. The migrants went missing in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Tri Nuke Pudjiastuti, a speaker at the seminar, said there had been many cases of unfair treatment of migrants and even torture, which had caused the death of many workers on foreign soil.

She said sending people abroad as migrant workers was basically human trafficking.

"Before, many people used to ask the government to stop (the practice) because they were concerned workers were being exploited by the broker companies and their employers," she said.

Other participants noted the Philippines had a better record in protecting migrant workers than here.

They noted Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo decided last year to withdraw the country's troops from Iraq to save the life of single Filipino held hostage by militants.

Social observers Tri Nuke and Rianto Adi suggested the government improve its policy on migrant workers.

Indonesia passed a law protecting migrant workers in 2004 but the government never issued the regulations to enforce it.

Official statistics shows that remittances from migrant workers increased from US$1.8 billion in 2004 to $2.93 billion in 2005. This year they are expected to reach $3.5 billion.