Trisha Sertori/J.B. Djwan, Contributors, Bima and Flores – Daily there are dozens of stories of Indonesia's female migrant workers (TKW) in the news. Some have been abused, some are in other countries illegally, some are murdered, others murderers.
For all, the road home is long and difficult. The Jakarta Post met two young TKW women on that road. Their journeys cover 3000 and 5000 kilometers, helped through every bus, train and ferry crossing by Indonesian police and the nation's social department, (Depsos). This is their story.
Maria Rince is 25 years old. She is from the tiny village of Mangki Pande in Flores; a village absent of modern communications, such as telephones. Maria has a husband and a 2-year-old baby girl. She has neither seen nor heard from them since she was recruited to work in Malaysia in May this year.
Maria never reached Malaysia. She says she has been held prisoner for the past six months in a Jakarta warehouse that acts as a staging post for TKW waiting to head to other countries to work, predominantly, as maids. When The Jakarta Post met Maria on the ferry to Lombok she had been on the run across 3,000 kilometers for four days.
Thin as a reed and barely 140 centimeters tall, Maria is an unlikely fugitive, but when she broke out of her warehouse prison Sunday morning, October 22, that is what she became.
"Every night for the past six months I have prayed to get out of there – to go home," says Maria who failed her medical exam to enter Malaysia as a TKW and was told she could not leave until her sponsor from Flores collected her. The sponsor never came. "At first there were about 400 of us there. After the first 300 workers were sent to Malaysia they moved me into a room on the second floor. It had bunk beds and from the top bed I could reach the roof.
"On Sunday I had the room to myself. The security guard was on the gate – security was always there. I moved some tiles from the roof, threw out my bags and climbed out. I jumped three meters down to the roof next door and jumped again to the ground. My hands and knees were cut, my heart was pounding and I was crying with fear and pain.
"I grabbed my bags and ran to the Ciliduk Police station. I kept expecting the warehouse's security guard to catch me and drag me back. I was carrying two bags and had no strength to run fast. I was terrified," said Maria of her escape from illegal imprisonment.
The Ciliduk Police were the first people to offer her assistance in six months.
During her six months of illegal imprisonment, Maria says she worked for the TKW agency that has sponsors in small towns across the nation; sponsors who woo young women with promises of Rp 1.3 million per month.
"I was never paid for working as a cleaner there. (the warehouse) I was fed just rice and salted fish. There was never enough to eat.
"Many women never get paid, even when they work overseas. The sponsors don't tell us at the beginning that we have to pay back our transportation costs. That takes all the income of the first six months. We are slaves," said Maria, who despite being angry with the people that imprisoned her, grows happier with every kilometer on the journey home. "Soon I will see my baby girl,"
She says police and Depsos officials have supported her at every arrival point. Maria carries documents to harbor masters, station masters and bus drivers, granting her free passage home.
"When I arrive in each city I must first report to the police, then on to Depsos. When we get to Lombok I have this document for the governor. They will give us somewhere to sleep and food until tomorrow's ferry to Flores. I can not thank police and Depsos enough. Without them I could never get home," said Maria who met, Monday, Oct. 23, her fellow traveler, 18-year-old Nur Naya from Tanjung Mas in Sumbawa. The girls met at Surabaya's Depsos office. Nur was another fugitive from TKW life.
Nur's road at more than 5,000 kilometers and two years is longer than Maria's – harder. And it shows. Where Maria is open and smiling, begging her story be told and those involved named, Nur is closed. She watches her back constantly; is nervous to use her real name. She is standing, literally, still dressed in the clothes she left Malaysia wearing some weeks ago. Nur has not had contact with her family for two years. Like Maria's family, they do not know she is nearing home.
She has no other belongings, excepting a passport invalidated by a child's scribbling. A passport she passes this writer low so as not to be seen by other ferry passengers. "They wouldn't let me get my things," she explains on the absence of a suitcase that should be filled with two years of memories and savings to take home. "I was never paid. Two years and I was never paid."
Nur is difficult, cagey. It is hard to listen to her story without a degree of incredulity, until you remember she was taken away to work as a maid at 16 years of age. Her passport passes her off as 27 years of age. In her passport photograph she looks like what she then was – a 16-year-old schoolgirl.
Maria, who spent six months in a TKW holding camp, says this is not uncommon. "I saw a lot of very young girls with false passports. (In the passports) 12 becomes 20 and 15 becomes 25. The birth dates are forged."
Tortured with an electrified baton, her head shaved, routinely beaten, burned, humiliated and possibly regularly pimped, Nur's story is horrific.
"For the first five months things were good. Then one day I had to bath the dog of my boss in West Malaysia. I am a Muslim and I explained handling the dog was against my religion. My boss said we were in Malaysia now. 'I have paid (Malaysian) 1,000 ringgits for you. We don't get you for free. Do what you are told,' My boss then pulled my hair, slapped my face and burned my arm with a boiling saucepan," said Nur, lifting the sleeve of her T-shirt to show the scarring on her upper arm.
As Nur became angrier with her employer things went from bad to worse. Nur admits being less careful taking care of her boss' child than required. "The baby had fallen off the bed and was crying. She was eight months old. For that my boss hit me on the head with her fist. I said I wanted to leave and go home. Then the dog died and my boss kicked me and made me bury the dog.
"That's when she called the agent in Malaysia. He came to see what the problem was. I said I wanted to go home. He took me to his home and there he tortured me with the electric baton. He used that on my ear lobes, elbows and big toes. Then he shaved my head and beat me, saying 'so you want to go home,' over and over again. In the end I said I wanted to stay and work. Just to make the beatings stop," said Nur.
"In the end I worked for the agent. He would sell me on to others for day work. One day people came to pick me up at nine o'clock in the morning. My boss was still sleeping and I had not had breakfast so I didn't go with them. When the boss woke up he beat me and threw me into the street. He would not let me get my things. He said they were his now," Nur said.
Without money, friends or family to turn to, Nur said she was confused and frightened. She spent most of the day in the heat without food or drink. Eventually she walked five kilometers in search of police.
"They asked if I was an Indonesian worker and if I was a runaway. I told them what had happened and they took me to the police station where I gave a statement," said Nur who was finally helped on the road home by the Indonesian Embassy.
Nur says she was promised Malaysian ringgit 450 (Rp 1.3 million) per month to work in Malaysia. She had jumped at the chance to get away from her remote village and earn some money. She returns home hard hearted and broke."The bosses all said they would look after my money for me. They've still got it."
Both Maria and Nur warn others not to look for work overseas. "Until I am an old woman I will never leave again. Don't go. Don't be a TKW girl because you'll be tortured and abused," Maria said. Nur said TKW is the life of a slave: "Don't go overseas to work. Don't work outside Indonesia because people are hard. We are their helpers, but they treat us like animals – like slaves".