The House of Representatives says the Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar must clearly deliver his future programs to ensure the safety of the country’s migrant workers.
“Most of our migrant workers face uncertainty about their status because of the overlapping authority between the manpower ministry and the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI),” Ribka Tjiptaning, chairwoman of Commission IX on health, workers and welfare, said Monday.
“Therefore, we want to have a hearing with Pak Muhaimin here on Wednesday. We want to know his ideas about migrant worker protection issues. Does he want to revise the manpower law to fix the overlapping bureaucracy or does he have any other ideas? That’s what we want to know,” said Ribka from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
“When workers are going abroad, they [the BNP2TKI and the manpower ministry] fight with each other to win the authority to handle the workers’ departure due to the money involved, but when migrant workers face troubles abroad, none of the institutions are willing to take responsibility,” she said.
The lack of initiative from Indonesian embassies abroad to facilitate the legal protection of migrant workers with their owners will be included on the main agenda the commission plans to discuss with Muhaimin, said Ribka.
“Embassy officials often argue they do not have enough money to pay for lawyers, while in fact when migrant workers arrive in foreign countries, the embassy receives at least Rp 300,000 [US$31.5] per person,” she said.
“Now, multiply that number with the millions and millions of our migrant workers abroad. Where has all this money gone?
“What are the overseas insurance consortiums doing? Should we just disband the consortiums? That’s what we want to know from Pak Muhaimin,” she added.
Troubles faced by migrant workers abroad, Ribka said, originated from abysmal bureaucratic processes in Indonesia.
“For example, identity cards show that they [migrant workers] come from Jember, East Java, but their passports say that they are from Garut, West Java. Why? I believe that we should also reform the Indonesian Labor Recruitment Agencies (PJTKI),” she said.
Separately, the deputy chairman of the House Commission I on defense and foreign affairs, Hayono Isman from the Democratic Party, agreed with Ribka about the need for Indonesia to reform its labor recruitment processes.
Hayono also told The Jakarta Post that it was important for the country’s high-ranking officials, such as the manpower minister, to show a bit more respect towards the country’s migrant workers by personally visiting and facilitating assistance for migrant workers in trouble.
“I truly regret the fact the minister did not personally show up to collect the body of one of our migrant workers recently killed in Malaysia,” he said.
“It was supposed a time for Indonesia to show Malaysia that the abuse of one migrant worker equals the abuse of a nation,” he added.
Hayono was referring to a worker named Muntik binti Bani, who was killed in Malaysia after she was violently abused by her employer.
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|