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Rights issue placed on ASEAN’s back burner

It has been nearly one year since Southeast Asian leaders signed a regional pact on the protection of migrant workers on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines, and yet an immediate follow-up to a more legally binding agreement still seems like a distant goal

Dian Septiari and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, August 10, 2018

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Rights issue placed on ASEAN’s back burner

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t has been nearly one year since Southeast Asian leaders signed a regional pact on the protection of migrant workers on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines, and yet an immediate follow-up to a more legally binding agreement still seems like a distant goal.

Following up on the ASEAN Consensus on the Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, regional civil society organizations (CSOs) have started drafting an action plan to supplement the consensus document and offer recommendations to governments in the region.

Indonesia’s permanent representative to ASEAN, Ade Padmo Sarwono, said migrant workers’ protection was not an issue discussed at the most recent ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Singapore last week.

“[The migrant workers issue] was discussed at the sectoral level among ASEAN labor ministers,” he said during a discussion in South Jakarta on Thursday. “The foreign ministers [do] not discuss it until there are [...] problems.”

He did, however, say that the ministry would always “follow closely” developments on the migrant workers issue by working closely with the Manpower Ministry and the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) to secure Indonesian interests.

According to the AMM joint communiqué released last week, ASEAN foreign ministers simply “recalled” the signing of the consensus and applauded the development of the action plan, which often translates into a lack of follow up actions. They also looked forward to the adoption of the consensus at the next ASEAN Labor Ministers Meeting and its acknowledgement by ASEAN leaders at the upcoming 33rd ASEAN Summit in November.

“The rapid development of the action plan is a clear indication of the ASEAN labor sector’s commitment to protect and promote the rights of migrant workers in ASEAN,” the communiqué states.

In February, CSOs also called for Indonesia to lead the ongoing negotiations over the protection of the rights of migrant workers following a disappointing lack of attention by regional actors.

Avyanthi Azis, an international relations expert from the University of Indonesia, said the introduction of the ASEAN consensus document was quite a disappointment for Indonesia, because many were hoping for a legally binding document.

“But we have to compromise and settle for a morally binding [option], which actually reflects the labor receiving countries’ interests more than the sending countries’ interests,” she said.

Even before the annual AMM was convened in Singapore, the Foreign Ministry’s ASEAN cooperation director general, Jose Tavares, said Indonesia would not immediately push for the document to be legally binding — a crucial aspect of its implementation — opting instead “to allow it room to breathe”.

In the lead up to last year’s AMM, Indonesia had sought for a legally binding ASEAN consensus, but it was met dimly by other countries in the region.

Migrant workers remain an integral aspect of ASEAN economies due to the significant contributions gleaned from remittances. Even though such contributions for Indonesia only account for 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), remittances constitute 10 percent of GDP for the Philippines, 7 percent for Vietnam and 5 percent for Myanmar.

Indonesia, which sends thousands of migrant workers to neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Brunei, has yet to renew bilateral deals with either country.

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