T

here is still much work to be done before Indonesia can fully protect the rights of its migrant workers overseas.

While recent progress on key legislation brings a glimmer of hope, Indonesia still has to face the music as it prepares to defend its reputation in front of an international audience.

Jakarta is expected to field a delegation to a meeting with the United Nations’ Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW) in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting, scheduled for Sept. 5 and 6, aims to review a report Indonesia submitted earlier this year as a follow-up to the ratification of the International Convention on Migrant Workers (ICMW) in 2012.

Five years after ratification, ICMW-pledging countries like Indonesia must submit an initial report based on a list of issues prior to reporting, including questions posed by the CMW committee on the implementation of the convention by Indonesia.

The Foreign Ministry recently convened a national coordination meeting in Jakarta, gathering relevant stakeholders to update the report ahead of Indonesia’s defense in Geneva. After consulting with academics and civic groups, as well as relevant institutions such as the Manpower Ministry and the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI), it became clear that a delayed law revision would be up for discussion.

The revision of Law No. 39/2004, which deals with the placement and protection of Indonesian migrant workers abroad, will be placed under the spotlight by the CMW committee, said Foreign Ministry human rights director Dicky Komar.

“This is an initial report, so there is bound to be room for improvement, whether substantially or by procedure. In any case, it is a review in the spirit of betterment,” he told the panel. “But we’re quite certain the committee would recommend for us to expedite the revision of the law.”

The deliberation of the new bill, which has been negotiated since 2012 and was expected by many to be passed into law this year as priority legislation, is seeing positive development despite the fundamental challenges.

The 2004 law was born when the government prioritized the overseas placement of Indonesian migrant workers in large volumes, while placing little to no emphasis on rights protection.

This resulted in what several stakeholders called a “flawed paradigm” in the recruitment system of migrant workers and became the source of hundreds of overseas legal cases each year.

The ministry said a total of 34,389 Indonesian domestic workers were repatriated in 2016 because of such cases.

According to a draft bill obtained by The Jakarta Post, various clauses in the previous law that govern the placement of migrant workers and its commercial aspects have been revoked so as to do away with the overlapping mandates of the Manpower Ministry and BNP2TKI.

“Our target is to pass the bill into law by early 2018 – everything has to be finalized by then,” said Irma Suryani Chaniago, a National Democratic Party lawmaker engaged in the deliberations.

However, even after the new bill is passed, there would still be much to improve in the recruitment system, argued Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad.

“The [revised] law would not be enough to shift the paradigm from placement to protection because the devil is in the details,” he said.