Anita Rachman – Nongovernmental organizations on Tuesday urged the incoming cabinet to establish a new policy protecting the rights of migrant workers and to ratify the UN's 1990 Migrant Workers Convention within 100 days.

Thaufiek Zulbahary, coordinator of the People Alliance for 1990 Migrant Convention Ratification, said that the new minister of manpower and transmigration and the state minister of women's empowerment should be able to resolve basic protection standards for about six million Indonesian migrant workers overseas.

"One of the most important points we want the new cabinet to resolve within the first 100 days is to ratify the 1990 convention, which was already signed by the government in 2004," Thaufiek said.

Resta Hutabarat, of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, said the UN convention promotes migrant workers' rights and provides a deportation mechanism in the event they face troubles overseas. It also guarantees their right to retain their own documents, including passports.

Resta said that, under outgoing Minister Erman Suparno, the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration had been reluctant to ratify the convention, arguing that the move would have little effect on Indonesian migrant workers as they were mostly dealing with employers overseas, many in destination countries that had not ratified the convention.

"The ministry has refused to understand that although destination countries have not ratified it, the convention is still important to set a mechanism on how to dispatch migrant workers overseas and how the destination country deals with foreign workers" she said.

"Look at Mexico and the Philippines, which have ratified the convention, they have better regulations on migrant workers."

She said that to date 42 countries had ratified the convention, including Congo, Uruguay, Mexico and the Philippines.

Resta said that destination countries usually take into account the sender country's commitment to protection of migrant workers. Negotiations on standard salaries and protections should be initiated by country sending workers, she said.

Thaufiek said several related ministries, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Law and Human Rights, had already shown their commitment to ratifying the convention, "but the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration has shown little interest. Therefore, we urge the new minister to resolve this issue soon."

Thaufiek said that the alliance would send an official recommendation to the new cabinet.