Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, Jakarta – The International Labour Organization (ILO) has called on Indonesia to commit to two international conventions in order to better protect its migrant workers.
The ILO's labor standards director Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry said Friday that ILO Conventions 97 and 143 could ensure greater protection and labor rights for workers.
"The migration of workers is a wave that the government cannot stop, so better protection is needed," she said after a discussion at the office of the government's Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.
The revised C97 Migration for Employment Convention binds each member nations maintain a free and adequate quality service for assisting migrants with finding jobs and information.
The C143 Migrant Workers Convention calls on members to suppress the illegal movement and employment of migrant workers.
The ILO says many migrant workers face pitfalls such as abusive employers, low salaries and the confiscation of their passports.
"The government should regulate and monitor the employment agency in order to make it easier for the government to track down workers," Doumbia-Henry said.
Many Indonesian housemaids have been severely exploited and even killed by their foreign employers. The government has had difficulty tracing some victims because they found their way overseas through illegal trafficking.
In this month alone, one 24-year-old Indonesian maid was found dead in Malaysia, while two others were allegedly beaten to death by the members of a Saudi family who also severely injured two of their co-workers.
Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Soeparno said last week he faced difficulties negotiating the different foreign laws migrant workers had to live under.
The ILO believes poverty is the main reason Indonesians look for work overseas.
Doumbia-Henry said aid donor countries should help Indonesia create jobs at home to help reduce the potential for exploitation abroad.
The ILO's Jakarta branch director Alan J. Boulton said the agency had started a scheme to inspire entrepreneurship in the country's east.
"Creating jobs in Indonesia is a big challenge. We are now collaborating with several ministries and NGOs to improve education and training on entrepreneurship."
The ILO is cooperating with the National Education Ministry and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry in the program.
Wahyu Susilo, a policy analyst at non-governmental organization Migrant Care, told The Jakarta Post that Indonesia should ratify the ILO conventions.
"We've only ratified the standard convention on migrant worker's rights," he said. "But ratifying conventions is only half the answer. The problem is: has the government implemented its commitment here?"
Wahyu added that there are around four-and-a-half-million Indonesian workers abroad, with the number leaving and entering the country fluctuating between 750,000 and a million people each year.
"This figure has been steady for the past ten years. The number soared when the financial crisis hit the country in 1997 to 1998."