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hundred activists and domestic workers in Yogyakarta staged a rally Tuesday, protesting a governor decree that allegedly contravened a bylaw on domestic workers.

The protesters marched for a half kilometer from the city hall to the municipal legislature building.

They carried posters condemning the Yogyakarta Governor Decree No. 244/2009, which is considered to have contravened Article 37 on domestic workers of the muncipal bylaw No. 13/2009.

“We are really shocked by the decree. Article 37 of the bylaw on manpower gave us energy to struggle for our rights. Now it’s gone again,” said protester Sri Murtini, secretary general of the Congress of Yogyakarta Domestic Workers Organizations (KOY).

Besides KOY members, activists of Rumpun Tjoet Njak Dien (RTND), an NGO focusing its activities on struggling for domestic workers’ rights, also joined the rally.

They carried an effigy in the image of devil character of the gendruwo ghost to symbolize the harshness of the decree.

“The decree has raised a big question not just among us but also among the city councilors and the officials at the municipal Social Affairs, Manpower and Transmigration agency [Dinsosnakertrans],” said Buyung Ridwan Tanjung, coordinator of RTND’s advocacy division.

Buyung said the decree was against the spirit of a previous governor circular issued on March 2003, which ordered all the regents and mayor in the province to prepare for a bylaw on domestic workers.

The protest followed a hearing at the city legislature early last week, during which the participants were informed by an official from the provincial administration about the cancellation of the article.

The hearing itself was initially scheduled to have discussed the follow-up programs for Article 37 of the bylaw on manpower, which was approved by the city legislative council in June 2009.

The three-point article, among others, stipulated that a working contract could be made between an employer and his/her domestic worker. It also mandated the Yogyakarta mayor to prepare a separate bylaw on domestic workers.

Although no obligations were mentioned in the article regarding a compulsory working contract, the article was considered to be a big step in which domestic workers, or PRT as they are locally known, have already been officially acknowledged as formal workers.

“As far as we know, it was the first regional bylaw in the country that ever mentioned and thus acknowledged the status of domestic helpers as workers,” Buyung said.

Unfortunately, Buyung added, the article lasted only for about six months as Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X issued the decree on Dec. 14, 2009, stating that PRTs were part of the informal sector and therefore should not be included in the bylaw on manpower.

“This is adversary but not destructive to the hopes and dreams of all PRTs in the region to have legal protection from the bylaw,” he said.

“It has also shortchanged the political rights of the municipal councilors and the manpower office executives that approved the bylaw on June 9, 2009.”

Buyung said both RTND activists and KOY members wanted to show their full support for the city legislators and executives in conducting a judicial review of the decree and maintaining the 2009 bylaw on manpower.

“We reject the governor decree and strongly demand it be cancelled immediately,” Buyung said.

His words were greeted with yells by the rest of the protesters. They failed to meet a councilor that day.