Dicky Christanto, Jakarta – Every three months at least 500 Indonesians travel to Malaysia and start work illegally, despite Indonesia's ban on allowing informal workers to migrate to the neighboring country, says a Foreign Ministry official.

"If the government fails to prevent them from going to Malaysia, it will weaken Indonesia's position at the current talks with the Malaysian government over the rights of workers," Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Da'i Bachtiar told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday.

Indonesia last year halted informal workers, mostly domestic workers and plantation laborers, from migrating to Malaysia after reports surfaced of violent abuse of Indonesian housemaids in the country.

Indonesia is negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kuala Lumpur that will protect Indonesian maids.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said that the administration would tighten supervision of the flow of illegal workers, but it would be difficult because of the many ways people could reach Malaysia. "We have to have eyes and ears at dozens of [potential] entry points, but we will do our best," Muhaimin said.

Illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia use normal passports instead of special migrant worker passports and it is "hopeless" to try to locate or track them, said Teguh Wardoyo, the director for justice and protection of Indonesian nationals at the Foreign Ministry. "These people have used normal passports to find jobs," he told The Jakarta Post.

Anis Hidayah of Migrant Care said she was critical of the government's handling of migrant worker problems. One obvious example is a serious lack of monitoring at the country's borders, she added.

"We have witnessed business as usual in the field, as if the policy was never banned. The government seems to have done nothing to track down illegal workers," she said.

Anis said that consistently weak government monitoring would prevent solving migration problems in the field, even if Indonesia and Malaysia sign an MoU.