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Discourse: Government treats migrant workers as export commodities
Migrant Care is one of the NGOs providing legal advocacy for troubled migrant workers
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em>Migrant Care is one of the NGOs providing legal advocacy for troubled migrant workers. Its executive director Anis Hidayah shared her experience with The Jakarta Post’s Ridwan Max Sijabat.
Question: Why is the rate of abuse of Indonesian migrant workers currently on the rise?
Answer: This is in line with the accelerated rate of labor exports and the lack of job opportunities at home, especially in rural areas. Besides, the government had no political will to reform the human trade. It has functioned more as fire extinguisher, reactive rather than responsive.
Do you think the government is involved in human trafficking?
Government regulation and policy have opened major loopholes for human trafficking that allegedly involves government apparatus.
How?
The legal procedures involve immigration officers, the police, the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and the Health Ministry. This has been manipulated to supply workers illegally. Labor supply and human trafficking are two sides of the same coin, depending on how the procedure is set up and operated. The government is guilty by omission.
What are crucial points in the labor export procedure?
First of all, the flow of information is very weak and many workers get trapped in the human trade because of a lack of information on overseas employment. Second, the labor protection mechanism and sanctions against those involved in manipulating the existing mechanism are very weak.
The absence of close supervision in the labor export procedure has also contributed to smuggling and abuses overseas.
What is your comment on the government blaming labor exporters and migrant workers as culprits in the deviating labor export practice?
We see it as part of the government’s attempt to avoid public blame. The government should reform the controversial regulations and procedures and give special emphasis to its main task of generating jobs and providing protection for all citizens. The government should give the red carpet treatment to all citizens arriving home after working overseas. The task of providing worker protection could be delegated to labor exporters.
Do you ever find that many government apparatuses have abused their power in issuing relevant documents for migrant workers?
Yes, we do. All workers pay a price to get the documents, including falsified ones and many workers are not aware of potential problems when their documents are falsified and they do not acquire adequate training in their job competence and communication skills.
Do you think the law needs revision and the UN convention needs to be ratified?
The revision and the ratification are a must to ensure fundamental rights for all stakeholders in supplying workers overseas and providing protection for them.
The government also has to change its paradigm of treating workers as a commodity export rather than migrant workers who must be treated humanely.
As a civilized nation, Indonesia should show its political commitment to upholding the dignity of its people. And they can be adopted by user countries as legal basis to make a political commitment to protection our migrant workers overseas.
Do you think the increasing number of abuse cases against migrant workers has something to do with the prolonged conflict between the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and the National Board for the Placement and Protection on Indonesian Migrant Workers?
Yes, I think so. The service for migrant workers have been undermined because of the two sides’ conflicting interests and both have failed in providing protection for migrant workers.
The two institutions should be replaced by an independent labor placement and protection commission to facilitate the workers’ migration overseas.
What should the government do for the labor export?
Very simple. The government should simplify the labor export procedure to be cheap, rapid and safe. The government should end the dominating role of private labor supply companies
The government should no longer send uneducated and unskilled workers, especially those from rural areas, who know less about modernity and international relations.
How does Migrant Care provide advocacy for troubled workers?
It is our standard procedure to respond quickly through mediation, to ensure workers’ rights, or through court, to allow them justice. In many cases, justice is a high price for which troubled workers have already paid.
We also accompany troubled workers to file legal complaints to relevant authorities in pursuing their rights.
How should labor migration be facilitated? Are there any lessons we can learn from other countries?
Regional administrations should be given more authority in facilitating their citizens to migrate abroad. They have to have their manpower planning on how to generate jobs and facilitate workers to work abroad.
They should also empower their own training centers to train prospective migrant workers in terms of job competence and communication skills.
The government should also set a standard curriculum for job training at all 180 training centers nationwide while labor exporters concentrate on supplying workers and seek overseas labor markets.
Besides providing training and documents, the government should also be in charge of protecting all workers and handling labor disputes during their trip and their employment overseas.
The government should also improve the workers’ access to insurance claims from appointed insurance companies.
This simplified procedure will cut the red tape and the pooling houses in Jakarta and outskirts where slavery has been often practiced, will become history.
