Margareth S. Aritonang – The government has been called on to disclose details on a huge amount of insurance funds collected from migrant workers and to explain how it has managed the money.
Migrant Care, an organization that provides legal advocacy for Indonesian migrant workers, questions why the fund's management is not transparent.
According to the group's estimation, the funds collected from workers between 2006 and 2011 have reached Rp 1.79 trillion (US$185.91 million).
The money is supposed to be spent on activities to promote the welfare of migrant workers. Migrant Care director Anis Hidayah said the funds should be used to improve protection of Indonesian migrant workers, including hiring lawyers to help workers with legal problems.
"Each migrant worker must pay Rp 400,000 for the insurance. Sadly, they gain nothing in return but humiliation from their employers due to the government's ignorance," Anis said during a discussion on Friday.
According to Migrant Care, the Rp 1.79 trillion in insurance funds included only the amount collected from 2006 to 2011, in which only about Rp 4 billion was accounted for.
Thus, Migrant Care asked the government to immediately audit the use of the funds as well as the performance of governmental institutions in charge of the management of the Indonesian migrant workers, including the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI).
"The government must explain where the money goes when in fact there is no protection for our migrant workers abroad. We recorded that at least 162 Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia are facing the death sentence without appropriate legal assistance," Anis added.
"The government should've provided legal aid for them, as well as all Indonesian migrant workers in other countries because we have budget for that," she added.
Meanwhile, lawmaker Ribka Tjiptaning of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said that the House of Representatives (DPR) setup a working committee in 2009 to investigate the whereabouts of the insurance funds.
"The committee is responsible for examining the use of insurance funds that are supposed to be spent on the protection of our migrant workers, but this has yet to work due to unconfirmed reasons," Ribka, who chairs the House's Commission IX on demographic affairs, health, manpower and transmigration, said.
Ribka herself is not in the committee as she is being "punished" by the House's ethics council for inserting additional articles in a law on tobacco.
In addition to the working committee, the House had also recently formed a special committee on the protection of Indonesian migrant workers, comprising lawmakers from House Commission IX, Commission I on foreign affairs, and Commission III on law and human rights affairs.
"The committee will work on comprehensive efforts to protect the rights of our migrant workers abroad, especially in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, where many workers suffer abuse," committee member Tantowi Yahya said.