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abor activists have denounced a senior government official for claiming that the behavior of Indonesian migrant workers, especially women, was to blame for their misfortune overseas.

The activists said the statement by Maftuh Basyuni, who heads the migrant workers task force, had degraded and stigmatized women workers.

They demanded that the former religious minister retract his statement and issue a public apology.

“The main duties of the task force are neither to disparage migrant workers nor stereotype them. Its main task is to advocate those facing death sentences overseas,” Thaufiek Zulbahry from the Solidarity for Women said on Thursday.

Thaufiek added that most migrant workers had been charged with adultery not because they dressed provocatively or were coquettish but were in fact raped by their employers.

“All migrant workers were trained and their competence and health condition were verified by the government before their departure. No single worker has been trained to be flirtatious!” he said, adding that the task force should learn one by one the cases of women migrant workers on death row.

To protest Maftuh’s statement, the Solidarity for Women jointly made a statement with the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI), the Federation of All-Indonesian Workers Union for Reform (FPSI Reformasi), KAPAL Perempuan and IWORK.

Maftuh made the statement on Tuesday during a workshop reviewing the recruitment and placement of migrant workers.

Humprey Jemat, spokesman for the task force, claimed the task force, which was set up on July 5, 2011 and has had its term of work extended until July 2012, has succeeded in saving 72 of 312 migrant workers on death row in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Nasaruddin Umar, a former task force leader, meanwhile said the sexual violence against women migrant workers occurred mainly because of an imbalance of power between workers and their employers and not because of the way the women workers behaved or dressed.

SBMI deputy chairman Jejen Nurjanah regretted Maftuh’s statement, which she said stigmatized female migrant workers returning home from the Middle East with newborns that had Arabic facial features.

“Maftuh’s statement shows his misunderstanding of the human rights approach, gender equality and victims’ perspectives in handling troubled migrant workers,” she said.

Separately, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said it was more difficult for the task force to help illegal migrant workers facing death sentences overseas but the government tried and did not discriminate in helping troubled workers.

He said illegal workers facing death sentences had more difficulties in getting lighter sentence because besides having broken the law, their bargaining power was also week.

“The government has lobbied intensively as a last resort, besides hiring professional lawyers, to indiscriminately save all workers facing death sentences,” he stressed.