RI domestic workers still in danger: Amnesty International

Marking International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which falls on Nov. 25, London-based rights group Amnesty International has urged the Indonesian government to enact specific legislation regulating the labor rights of domestic workers in Indonesia.

Amnesty International Indonesia & Timor-Leste campaigner Josef Roy Benedict said on Friday that the law should explicitly include legal provisions pertaining to the specific needs of women, including ensuring sexual and reproductive rights for domestic workers, in particular during and after pregnancy.

“The continued failure to pass a domestic workers’ law places domestic workers in Indonesia at continued risk of economic exploitation, gender-based discrimination as well as physical, psychological and sexual violence,” Benedict said in a press statement received by The Jakarta Post.

Indonesia passed Law No. 23 on the elimination of domestic violence in 2004. However, reports of such violence continue.

According to a 2011 report by the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan), an estimated 105,000 cases of domestic violence were reported last year.

“Many domestic workers who work in conditions of isolation are not aware that domestic violence is a crime, or of the existence of the 2004 Domestic Violence Law,” Benedict said.

Amnesty International also called on the government to ratify the new ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, incorporate its provisions into domestic law and implement it in policy and practice. (swd)