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Worker returns after decades of no contact
Reunited: Seventy-four-year-old Qibtiyah (second right) meets her family in Jember, East Java, on Tuesday for the first time since she left to work in Saudi Arabia 28 years ago
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eunited: Seventy-four-year-old Qibtiyah (second right) meets her family in Jember, East Java, on Tuesday for the first time since she left to work in Saudi Arabia 28 years ago. They lost contact because her employer did not allow her to communicate with her home, extend her passport, or get a residence permit. (Courtesy of Foreign Ministry)
Qibtiyah, a 74-year-old migrant worker, was finally returned home and met with her family in Jember, East Java, on Tuesday after being out of contact in Saudi Arabia for almost 30 years.
“Some of the family members believed that this was a miracle,” Chairil Anhar, a case officer with the Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday. “They had reached the point of resignation, but with the efforts of the Protection Team of the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh, [she was] finally found.”
Qibtiyah’s eldest son, Saiful Hadi, said his mother left her hometown of Tempurejo in August 1990 when she was still 46 years old. He said in 1991 she sent money and a letter to the family, saying she was in good condition, but there were no more updates after that. Saiful said, as quoted by kompas.com, that the family sent letters and telegrams, but “We did not get any reply”. He said that after several years he went to the company that sent Qibtiyah to Saudi Arabia for information about her, but was told his mother was not registered in their records. “I suspect my mother’s identification was falsified.”
Qibtiyah’s family finally reported her apparent disappearance to the Foreign Ministry and the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh on March 9 of this year. Her identity was not found in any government database, including those of the embassy in Riyadh and the consulate general in Jeddah because she had never gone to them for any immigration services.
The citizen protection team finally got information about her whereabouts from another migrant worker, Niayah, who said she had interacted with Qibtiyah on one occasion. Niayah works for a relative of Qibtiyah’s employer, who was later identified as Abdul Azis Muhammed Al-Daerim.
However, when contacted by Indonesian officials in March, Al-Daerim claimed he had sent Qibtiyah home three months before. The embassy then sent diplomatic notes to the Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia, while Ambassador Agus Maftuh Abegebriel sent a letter to Riyadh Governor Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, both requesting assistance from them to resolve the case.
After confirming that Qibtiyah was still with Al-Daerim, on April 18, with the help of local authorities, Indonesian officials took her from her employer’s home to a halfway house at the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh.
Qibtiyah has said she was not abused by her employer, but he had never fulfilled his obligation to help her get a residence permit, extend her passport or allow her to communicate with her family.
Qibtiyah was also owed back-pay and before sending her home the embassy managed to get the employer to pay her remaining salary of 76,000 riyal (US$20,261).
Every year, the Foreign Ministry receives on average of 200 reports from families who have lost contact with relatives working abroad, to a total of 950 since 2014. Only 19 percent of those cases are resolved, according to Foreign Ministry data. One of the reasons cited was that most of the sending agencies did not give Indonesian representatives abroad information about the migrant workers they sent.
