Camelia Pasandaran – The government has allowed individuals and groups to exploit Indonesian migrant workers by failing to provide them the necessary legal protection, according to a nongovernmental organization.

Anis Hidayah, director of Migrant Care, said the government's failure to ratify the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers, which it adopted in September 2004, was sending the wrong signal.

"Indonesia has for years neglected the protection of the human rights of millions of migrant workers it has sent to work overseas," she said.

Anis said that with millions of Indonesian workers facing abuse and exploitation overseas, it was vital that the government ratified the convention to help protect these workers' rights.

According to data provided by Migrant Care, there are now 6.9 million Indonesians working overseas, mostly in Malaysia and the Middle East.

Reports of physical abuse and exploitation at the hands of employers are common, with the government's intervention limited to repatriating workers.

"The government sees migrant workers only as a source of income and completely ignores their needs," Anis said.

She said the 1990 convention set out the minimum standards a labor-supplying country should meet to protect and ensure the rights of its migrant workers.

The convention, for example, requires supplier countries to ensure that their workers abroad are well protected. Thirty-five supplier countries have ratified the convention.

Retno Dewi, chairwoman of the Indonesian Workers Association (ATKI), said the government's reluctance to ratify the convention was a signal of its lack of commitment to upholding human rights.

"The ratification of the convention may not automatically change the fate of many migrant workers," she said. "But it will show the international labor market that Indonesia is committed to protecting its workers."

Sri Wiyanti Eddyono, a member of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), called on the government to ratify the convention immediately.

"We want it to be ratified as soon as possible to guarantee better protection for migrant workers, who are mostly women," Sri Wiyanti said.

According to data provided by Komnas Perempuan, around 80 percent of Indonesian migrant workers are women.

Roostiawati, subdirectorate head of foreign cooperation at the migrant worker placement directorate of the Manpower and Transmigration Minister, said on Tuesday that the government had not been remiss in pushing the convention's ratification.

"We have to consider carefully before ratifying the convention," she said. "Problems of migrant workers will not be solved directly with the ratification. The 35 countries that ratified the convention have not been able to improve conditions for their workers."

However, she said that the government was working toward ratifying the convention, though she could not say when this would happen.

"Just because we have not signed the convention, it doesn't mean that we are not protecting our workers," Roostiawati said, adding that the government was now focusing more on other regional plans.

"Asean countries are drafting an agreement that will include the points of the convention and will be applied to all nations in Southeast Asia," she said.