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uman rights activists are calling on the government to implement a number of internal reforms to balance out its efforts to provide better protection for Indonesian migrant workers abroad.

Anis Hidayah from Migrant Care said she appreciated the Foreign Ministry'€™s recent work on improving bilateral ties with a number of Middle Eastern countries that are traditionally destinations for Indonesian migrant workers.

Anis said, however, that she hoped other relevant government agencies would follow suit and show the same amount of effort to bring reforms to the country'€™s largely outdated and inefficient framework for the management of outgoing migrant workers.

'€œI fully appreciate the Foreign Minister'€™s efforts in improving bilateral relations [in the Middle East] in order to enhance the protection of Indonesian migrant workers there [...] I also hope that these efforts are followed up with bureaucratic reforms within the country,'€ Anis told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

She said that improving the management of migrant worker placement was an urgent matter and that it was up to the Manpower Ministry, the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI), as well as the legislative bodies, to ensure the implementation of bureaucratic reforms.

'€œ[President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s] administration is cleaning up a number of mafia like the oil and gas mafia. [He] should also do so for the migrant worker placement mafia,'€ she concluded.

Puri Kencana Putri of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said that the Foreign Ministry'€™s efforts, though expected of the government, were progressive and consistent with the goals put forward at the beginning of this year.

Puri also argued that the Foreign Ministry was not solely responsible for taking care of the ongoing issues that plague Indonesian migrant workers abroad. She said it was also up to the Manpower Ministry to guarantee the legal certainty of the thousands of Indonesian citizens overseas.

'€œThe government cannot merely collect revenues or remittances from these migrant workers, but it must also provide preventive measures against any possible incidents [during placement],'€ Puri told the Post on Saturday.

Puri, who is research bureau head at Kontras, said the government could only benefit from being consistent with its own policies and so everything should be done to uphold Indonesia'€™s reputation on the international stage.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi has just concluded a 10-day trip to the Middle East, during which she engaged in bilateral discussions with officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. She also attended the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit to voice concerns on a number of humanitarian issues.

According to the ministry'€™s director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, Retno also reached out to the Indonesian migrant workers living in the Middle East to identify their problems with the work placement process.

Iqbal said the minister had also spoken with a number of senior government officials in the region on improving the framework for migrant protection though bilateral mechanisms, such as in the case with Saudi Arabia, in which Retno pushed for a deal that the government would receive early notification from Saudi officials about any Indonesian citizens involved in legal cases or facing the death penalty.

'€œIn essence, the Saudi foreign minister has agreed with Ibu Retno'€™s views, but due to the lack of a precedent on the matter, he needed to discuss it with the Saudi Crown Prince in his capacity as the home affairs minister,'€ Iqbal said recently.

'€œIf things pan out well, we'€™ll be the first nation to implement such a mechanism bilaterally with them [the Saudis].'€