Jakarta – Indonesians working abroad often become victims of extortion at the airport when they return home, a minister said in a newspaper report Wednesday, vowing to replace the relevant management.

Manpower Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea said in the Jakarta Post that Indonesian workers were targets for extortion by officials from his ministry, customs and immigration when they arrived at Jakarta's Sukarno-Hatta airport.

In contrast, in the Philippines returning overseas workers were assigned special lanes for a speedy exit at the airport, said the minister, who returned last week from the Philippines. He said his ministry will replace the management at the airport's Terminal III, which deals with the arrival of overseas workers.

Yunus Yamani, a former executive for the Returning Migrant Workers team partly responsible for managing Terminal III, blamed corruption on a lack of law enforcement. He accused the manpower ministry of failing to follow up on reports of extortion. "Unless the law is enforced, nothing will change at Terminal III, whoever manages it," Yamani was quoted as saying by the Post.

Indonesia has a million workers overseas, mainly in Malaysia, the Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore. They are mostly unskilled laborers doing menial jobs.