Tifa Asrianti, Jakarta – Several migrant worker placement companies (PJTKI) have been dodging bylaws to protect migrant workers in certain regencies, transferring workers to neighboring regencies with laxer regulations, an observer says.
Institute for Ecosoc (Economic and Social) Rights director Sri Palupi said Banyumas in Central Java, Jember in East Java and Tulangbawang in Lampung had issued bylaws to enhance migrant worker protections. The bylaws included the stipulation that PJTKIs have an office in the regency in order to close the distance between workers and their families.
"With PJTKI offices in the regency, people will be able to go there should anything happen to their family members who are working abroad," Sri said. Many PJTKI recruiters go door-to-door with only a suitcase, making it difficult for workers' families to find the recruiters once workers go abroad and recruiters return to Jakarta, she said.
But, Sri's organization found that some PJTKI transferred the documents of migrant workers in Banyumas to neighboring Cilacap, which does not have strict regulations on migrant workers. The PJTKIs sent the Banyumas workers abroad as workers from Cilacap.
Banyumas supplies a large number of migrant workers, those workers sending back remittances totaling Rp 68.6 billion (US$7.6 million) in 2006. Each year, almost 1,000 migrant workers are dispatched abroad from the regency.
"We hope in the future each province will have an umbrella law for migrant worker protections," she said.
Sri said her organization completed its second study of migrant worker conditions in Singapore and Malaysia in 2009 to see whether there were any improvements since their first study in 2005. There were no significant improvements because embassies could only contact migrant workers one year after their arrival or when they were renewing their contracts, which required them to report to embassies, she said.
"I think one of the solutions is to encourage the local administrations to be more involved in the recruitment," Sri added.
Roma Hidayat from West Nusa Tenggara-based migrant worker advocates ADBMI said the government should use the community networks that migrant workers form abroad to help protect them.
"These communities know their members better than the embassies. The government should approach these communities if they really want to protect migrant workers," Roma said.
The House of Representatives is revising the law on migrant worker protections this year. Prosperous Justice Party legislator and House Commission IX overseeing labor and health member Arif Minardi said working committee members had been meeting to speed up revisions.
Arif said they recently met with Aloysius Uwiyono, a legal expert from the University of Indonesia. Aloysius suggested the government appoint a special attache on migrant workers, establish one institution for worker placements and another for worker protections and write articles into law that aim to prevent any harm to migrant workers.
"We just found out that the 2004 law on migrant workers has not been looked at by academics, which is required for making a law. So, we have been meeting three or four times a week with experts, executives and civil society organizations," he said.