Anita Rachman & Ismira Lutfia, Jakarta – Twelve Indonesian Islamic organizations, including the two largest, demanded on Tuesday a temporary ban on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia and reminded Muslim women to only travel overseas without a male relative if the trip was essential.
Said Aqil Siradj, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim group, said the 12 organizations – with approximately 100 million followers between them – had agreed to lobby the government to provide protection to the millions of Indonesian migrant workers overseas, including in the Middle East and especially in Saudi Arabia.
"The government should issue a moratorium on sending our migrant workers to Saudi Arabia until it signs a memorandum of understanding with them," he said.
The call comes in the wake of reports of abuse and even the murder of Indonesian maids by their employers in the Gulf state.
Muhammadiyah, the country's second-largest Islamic organization, was also among the 12. It said that, under Islam, Muslim women were not allowed to travel far from home without being accompanied by male kin.
Said Aqil said Islamic teachings forbade women from going abroad to seek money unless they were forced to do so. "If they just want to gain more wealth overseas, that is not allowed," he said.
He said the government had hailed migrant workers as "foreign exchange heroes" but afforded them minimal protections, with too few bilateral agreements being signed with host countries to protect their welfare.
"It pains me to say... our migrant workers' conditions in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are better compared to those in Saudi Arabia," Said Aqil said.
NU's deputy chairman, Slamet Effendy Yusuf, said domestic workers were particularly at risk because they worked away from the public eye. "We prohibit women from working in such a dangerous place," he said.
However, Anis Hidayah, director of Migrant Care, said working overseas was often the only option for many because of the dearth of jobs in Indonesia.
Migrant Care's data suggests there are 6.5 million Indonesian workers abroad, 83 percent working as domestic helpers. A large majority are Muslim women. "This is an economic imperative and, after all, it is the government who mobilizes them [to look for jobs overseas]," she said.
Suhartono, a spokesman for the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, said the recommendations from the Islamic organizations could serve as "input" for the government in its efforts to evaluate the overall system of recruitment and placement of migrant workers.
He said the problem was a "systemic issue that spans recruitment, training, sending, placement, protection and repatriation" of workers and needed constant monitoring of conditions in destination countries.
Meanwhile, Labor Minister Muhaimin Iskandar met with his Saudi counterpart, Adel bin Mohammed Faqih, in Riyadh on Tuesday to discuss the issue.
Suhartono said the ministers had agreed to form a joint working group of senior officials. "The result of this working group meeting would be used as a reference point to form a memorandum of understanding between the two countries," he said.
In the absence of a moratorium on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, the government is now imposing tighter screening on candidates intending to work as domestic helpers there.
Those under 21 years old and without at least 200 hours of training would not be allowed to go, Suhartono said.