Dyah Ayu Pitaloka & Edi Hardum, Surabaya – More than 2,000 illegal and undocumented Indonesian workers who found themselves stranded in Malaysia are scheduled to be repatriated this week, as a deadline given by the Malaysian government approaches.
On Tuesday, "497 Indonesian workers are coming home from Malaysia. [On Wednesday] there will be 734," said Indonesia's minister for social affairs, Khofifah Indar Parawansa. "This week, there will be a total of 2,015 [workers from Malaysia repatriated]."
The government has pledged to bring back some 1.8 million undocumented Indonesians working overseas, 1.2 million of whom are in Malaysia.
Malaysia has set Dec. 31 as the deadline for illegal foreign workers to leave the country, and its Home Ministry has proposed caning as punishment for agents found guilty of continuing to bring in labor from abroad through unofficial channels, as well as immigration agents caught aiding them.
There have been concerns that caning will also be carried out on the undocumented workers.
Reyna Usman, the director general for the Social Affairs Ministry's migrant worker allocation division, said on Tuesday that the repatriation would be conducted in two stages.
"Those who can be returned now are those who only had administrative problems. Migrant workers with legal problems should wait until their cases are resolved, then finish their administrative verification," he said. "They are now being held in immigration detainment centers."
The Indonesian nationals were detained for working without a permit, overstaying their visas or having committed other immigration violations. The first batch – flown in from Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang – arrived on Tuesday morning at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta.
Khofifah said the Indonesian Air Force had allocated five Hercules aircraft for the ongoing repatriation efforts and to take the workers back to their hometowns.
"All transportation costs and transits will be born by the Social Affairs Ministry, the BNP2TKI [Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers] and the ministry of manpower," Khofifah added.
Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/exodus-illegal-indonesian-migrant-workers-begins/