Members of the House of Representatives are likely to scrap deliberations this week of the domestic workers’ protection bill, saying they need more time to discuss its pros and cons.
The National Mandate Party’s (PAN) Ahmad Riski Sadig, a member of House’s Commission IX overseeing labor and health affairs, said recently that the draft law lacked in-depth academic analysis of key issues related to culture and wages.
“The spectrum of [cultural issues] is so broad, and the current bill does not touch upon such important issues, which I think need a more comprehensive analysis from the academic community,” he told The Jakarta Post.
Ahmad said the bill was drafted by NGOs such as the Domestic Workers Advocacy Network.
The cultural aspects he cited included the practice of ngenger, a custom in Java in which a child stays in the house of a distant relative, or sometimes not a relative, in exchange for doing some housework.
“How are we going to apply employment contracts to people who practice ngenger, with many of them generally treated as part of the family, some even being sent to school?
“The ways in which we look at these people as manpower entails an effort to specifically define their work function,” Ahmad said.
He added that the current legislative draft would work if applied to domestic workers who worked a nine-to-five job.
In reality, however, most domestic workers lived with their employers, and it would be hard to monitor their working hours, or violations of labor rights, if the bill was passed, he said.
On the other hand, supporters of the bill claim House members opposing the bill seemed to have little grasp of the draft’s content, and even less desire to study it.
Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Unions chairman Syukur Sarto said proponents of the bill had to continue to press House members to deliberate and pass the bill.
He added that the bill’s supporters had to increase efforts to educate legislators about the bill.
“We need to emphasize the fact that the government doesn’t have sufficient mechanisms to protect domestic workers at home,” he said, adding that a 2004 law on placement and labor protection for domestic workers abroad and a 2003 law on employment were inadequate.
Commenting on cultural and wage issues, which so far have blocked progress toward the bill’s deliberation, Domestic Workers Advocacy Network chairwoman Lita Anggraini said such issues should be addressed by local provinces or territories where the traditional practices were applied.
The Advocacy Network would continue to fight for the rights of those involved in the practice of ngenger, Lita said, adding that ngenger accounted for an estimated 5 percent of all domestic workers. (tsy)
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