Dewi Kurniawati & Hera Diani, Kuala Lumpur – Siti Hajar forced her face, a mass of scarring from years of abuse, into a smile.

The 33-year-old West Java native made headlines in Indonesia in May this year when it was revealed she had been beaten and tortured for three years by her Malaysian employer, who had also refused to pay her salary for the 34 months she spent as a domestic worker.

Now living at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, she told the Jakarta Globe in an interview last month that her life was ruined. Her trembling hands betrayed her painful journey. "When I left home, my dream was to earn enough money to send my child to school," she said.

During the interview, Siti sat next to another abused domestic worker, Modesta Rengga Kaka, from East Nusa Tenggara. Modesta's ears were battered from the daily abuse she received over the past two years. Both workers' employers are now on trial in Malaysian courts, but the women can't return home to Indonesia until their cases are resolved.

Siti and Modesta are just two of the millions of Indonesians who have seen their dreams shattered after traveling abroad to work. Since the 1970s, tens of millions of Indonesians have left the country to work as maids, nannies, drivers and laborers in hope of a better life.

Some make it. But many do not, returning home with no money, beaten, depressed or, at worst, in a coffin. As many as 60 percent of Indonesians who travel overseas to work face serious problems, ranging from physical abuse to not being paid and as far as being killed on the job or committing suicide out of despair. Foreign Ministry records show that on average a shocking six Indonesian migrants die daily – mostly migrant workers.

It shouldn't be this way, of course. Workers enter the host countries legally with proper work documents but they are often treated like dirt. Governments are known to turn a blind eye to reports of physical and sexual abuse, refusal to pay salaries or provide leave, or to provide health care and vacations, among other common migrant issues.

These inconvenient truths tarnish the label of "state revenue heroes" bestowed upon Indonesia's migrant workers. In 2008, they remitted $8.2 billion to families in cities, towns and villages across the country.

In the wake of Siti Hajar's case, the central government suspended sending new female domestic workers to Malaysia, which hosts the largest population of Indonesian migrant workers. About two million Indonesians work on construction sites, at palm oil plantations and in the houses and apartments of the country's affluent.

Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are negotiating a new memorandum of understanding that would include higher basic salaries, one day off per week and annual home leave for Indonesian workers. An agreement has not yet been reached.

Critics argue that the ban was a politically reactive response by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government to the shocking and publicly embarrassing television images of Siti Hajar being sheltered at the Indonesian Embassy. However, experts say the problems that 80 percent of migrant workers face abroad actually begin at home: No training, forged documents, a lack of mental preparedness and an inability to speak the language of their hosts.

The first major exodus of Indonesian workers began in the 1970s. Today, 4.3 million Indonesians are working in 42 countries, according to the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI). This doesn't include an additional two million to four million illegal workers, according to BNP2TKI estimates.

Most of these masses – larger than the entire population of Singapore – work as domestic employees or in factories and plantations: Jobs seen as dirty, difficult, dangerous and demeaning. But the workers have little choice given their limited education and access to jobs back home.

According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesia has more than 113 million workers, but it also has around nine million unemployed, or an unemployment rate of 8.14 percent.

Experts say the country's economy must grow by at least 7 percent annually to absorb new entries into the workforce – but GDP has not experienced that sort of growth since the mid-1990s.

Therefore, many people have little choice but to seek work overseas. Given the prevalence of problems for migrant workers, especially domestic staff, their plight is dire.

"Over 50 percent of the country's workforce [only] has a primary education... [leading] them to seek work as domestic helpers overseas," said I Gusti Made Arka, director general of labor inspection at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration.

Unfortunately, the means to produce and protect quality migrant workers are few. The recruitment process is handled by middlemen preying on rural villagers, mostly from Java.

Recruits are kept in compounds and just over half receive minimal training. There are 506 overseas employment agencies in Indonesia, but only 350 have training facilities, according to Mohammad Jumhur Hidayat, chairman of the BNP2TKI.

Grimly, he said that it's only logical that employers in foreign countries look down on Indonesia's "unreliable" and "incompetent" migrant workers. "We trade our human resources. We hand over the destiny of migrant workers to an [unregulated] market mechanism, but a market mechanism only works well in a good market," Jumhur said.

A former labor activist who joined the agency when it was established in 2007, Jumhur conceded that it would not be easy to clean up a mess that began piling up three decades ago and involves the exchange of trillions of rupiah.

"Migrant workers are turned into cash cows from the moment they're recruited to the point when they return home," he said.

To solve some of the problems, Jumhur said the central government has begun forming community-based training centers in 20 villages in Java. "Hopefully they will soon reach 500 villages all over the country," he said.

However, a lack of law enforcement has enabled rampant illegal recruitment that doesn't offer such luxuries as training.

"This country is so big and law enforcement is poor. Illegal migration can occur via many routes on land, sea and air, supported by trafficking syndicates," said Anis Hidayah, chairwoman of Migrant Care, a Jakarta-based nongovernmental organization.

It wasn't until 2007 that the Foreign Ministry established one-stop citizen service centers at embassies in six countries – Singapore, Brunei, South Korea, Qatar, Syria and Jordan. Previously, the service was the same as back home: lengthy and bureaucratic.

The rising number of problems involving migrant workers forced the ministry to open more citizen centers in 2008 in embassies and consulates in Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and Kinabalu in Malaysia; Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia; Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates; Hong Kong and Kuwait.

Nine more are scheduled to open this year in New York City and Los Angeles; Darwin, Perth and Sydney; Osaka and Tokyo; and Malaysia's Penang and Kuching.

"Why only now? Because we didn't have enough personnel or a budget large enough before," said Endang Kuswaya of the Foreign Ministry, echoing a familiar bureaucratic complaint.

Indonesian embassies are overflowing with thousands of workers seeking refuge, he said, even in embassies that don't officially have shelters, such as in Dubai. He said it was unfair to blame the embassies for what happens to unfortunate Indonesian migrant workers.

"Monitoring domestic helpers is not easy because they work in private areas. Houses in Middle Eastern countries, for example, are surrounded with high fences, and even police officers have trouble getting in," Endang said, adding that it's even more difficult to monitor illegal workers.

Albert Bonasahat, national project coordinator on forced labor and trafficking at the International Labor Organization, said Indonesian embassies could work with foreign governments to set up immigration counters at their airports that migrant workers could report to when arriving in the country.

"Upon their arrival in the destination countries, migrant workers are usually picked up by agents and employers, and afterward they do not usually have any opportunity to file a report on their existence with the local embassy," he said. However, Endang reiterated that limited budgets and a personnel shortage were obstacles to this plan.

Part of the reason migrant worker problems remain unresolved is that Indonesian government agencies are too busy blaming each other to sit down and map out solutions.

The migrant worker board, BNP2TKI, blames the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry for failing to create standard recruitment procedures and to eliminate the problem of middlemen. The ministry in turn blames national and local police departments for not cracking down on illegal worker-recruitment agencies. They also blame immigration officials, as well as the countries hosting migrant workers.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry blames just about every government institution – except itself. "It's not possible that the Foreign Affairs Ministry can solve this problem by itself," Endang said. "The problem is back home. All related parties should sit together and find a solution."

Sadly, some prefer to play the blame game. Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno suggested that because the abuse occurred overseas, those countries should be held accountable. "We are still in tough, ongoing discussions with Malaysia," he said.

Erman also said the problems with middlemen and substandard recruitment agencies were the responsibilities of local police and governments. His suggestion was puzzling, as recruitment agencies are licensed by his own ministry, rather than provincial and district manpower offices.

Made Arka, meanwhile, not only blamed international trafficking syndicates, but also various government institutions, including the directorate general of immigration and the Ministry of Health, for issuing passports and medical certificates without examinations.

He also blamed the media, saying they were exaggerating the problem of migrant worker abuse. "The number of abuse cases is actually quite small," he said, brushing aside government statistics.

The bickering government officials agree on at least some things, such as having a dedicated airport terminal and special passports for migrant workers, and warning them of the perils of taking jobs as domestic staff. "If they want to work as a domestic helper, why don't they just work in their own country?" Erman asked.

Labor activists say that Terminal TKI at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport is an infamous black hole of corruption, extortion and robbery of migrant workers returning home from abroad.

Returning workers must pay exorbitant rates for minivans to get home as they are not allowed to be picked up by family members. Sometimes the minivan drivers will rob the passengers, who are carrying months of salary, and leave them stranded on the side of road.

"The special airport terminal and the pick-up rule were created because previously the situation was much worse, with many workers robbed and killed," Jumhur said, defending Terminal TKI. "The system is not perfect now, but it has significantly reduced the crime rate."

Labor activists have also complained of discrimination in the issuing of special passports for migrant workers, which are only valid for three years and differentiate them from regular Indonesians traveling abroad.

The ILO's Bonasahat said the central government appeared to be in denial of the fact that most migrant workers are undereducated women who have little choice but to go abroad to work as domestic employees because of the lack of jobs at home.

"The government said they would encourage migrant workers not to work in the informal sector. We should be realistic instead of being embarrassed and thinking that migrant workers are creating a bad image and loads of problems," Bonasahat said.

There should be an established system to help migrant workers, he said, including a pre-departure briefing, monitoring their well-being while they are overseas and a reintegration program once they return home. "The predeparture program should also include financial management lessons and psychological consultations on what they will face," Bonasahat said.

"Financial lessons would teach them how to manage their money, so they would not fall into poverty again and be forced to continue as migrant workers," he said. "Scholarships for workers' children and loans would also help the families. There should be special banking services that cater to migrant workers."

"The problem with domestic workers is that they work in a private realm, so it's not easy to check on [them]. But I think random checks by police would be possible. The Indonesian government needs to improve the capacity of its embassies to make sure that migrant workers are monitored," he said.

Meanwhile, the government should boost diplomacy to persuade host countries to ratify a labor convention. "These solutions cannot be done partially. There has to be an overhaul of the entire system," Bonasahat said.

Migrant Care's Anis said recruitment rules should be changed to provide more protection for the workers. "We need to amend the law... because it only focuses on recruitment agencies, but gives little stipulation to the rights and protection of migrant workers," she said.

Mother and child – Sriatun, 40, former migrant worker, in Sutojayan, East Java

"I worked in several countries for about 10 years. Now my daughter is in the process of doing the same.

"She wants to go to Hong Kong. She said it's difficult to find a job here for a high school graduate like her.

"She is 19 years old, so the agency faked her age to 22 years old. She can pass for 22 because she is a bit overweight.

"Am I worried that my only daughter is leaving? Well, yes. But she insists on going."

Worker to broker – Harjo Wijaya, migration broker

"I worked as a construction worker in Malaysia for five years. I don't feel like going anymore. My wife is working in Taiwan now, it's her turn to work while I take care of our children.

"I have been a middleman for 10 years now. I get Rp 2 million per person, which is actually not much. Now, it is difficult to find people aged 21 and above as most of them have become migrant workers already. I don't dare get teenagers to become migrant workers."

Worlds apart – Anita Asmadiani, migrant worker from Trenggalek, East Java

"I worked in Kuwait for a year in 2006, just two years after junior high school. I paid Rp 1.5 million to work there and was trained to speak Arabic for 28 days.

"I was a maid in a six-story house with two others. On religious holidays we'd barely sleep due to the endless cleaning and serving guests. I went back for a year, then worked in Singapore for two years and it was better. I have holidays every other week. I'm now waiting for a job order from Hong Kong."