"When personal household problems occur, such as affairs and divorces, they usually happen in the families of the overseas women workers," Joko Isnuroso told The Jakarta Post recently.

"If it isn't the husbands having affairs, then it's their wives coming home from overseas pregnant," Joko said, who is the head of Cihonje, in Gumelar subdistrict of Banyumas Regency, Central Java.

Joko added that of the roughly 2,000 members of his village, about 700 people, or one-third of the local population, had become overseas workers known as tenaga kerja wanita (TKW), (female migrant workers).

He said the village of Cihonje had been the largest supplier of female migrant workers from Banyumas. Of the 1,500 overseas workers from Banyumas Regency, almost one-third come from this village.

However, he said, it was a great pity that the large number of overseas workers from the village hadn't had much influence on the progress of the village, and ironically this had created many social problems.

"On the average, the money each TKW brings home is enough to build a house and buy land, but it has yet to be channeled into the village's needed social improvements."

The most conspicuous among the problems, according to Joko, had been household problems that result in divorces involving the families of the workers.

"Ninety percent of the workers who go overseas are women, and half of these families become damaged.

"In Cihonje there is on the average one divorce a month involving the family of an overseas worker. These cases usually occur after the TKW returns home. There are a wide variety of problems."

He said among the reasons cited for divorce was wives who had returned from overseas in advanced stages of pregnancy, or even sometimes brought back children they had given birth to.

"Many wives return home to find that their husbands have remarried or ware having an affair. Eventually, one accuses the other and instigates divorce proceedings."

Since 2000, he added, there had been more than 150 cases of divorce in his village.

"Before the trend began for women workers to go overseas, Cihonje village was safe and the households were happy."

Apart from household issues, other problems occur with relationships with relatives.

"The usual problem is when they send money from overseas to be distributed. The wives usually send the money to their parents, not to their husbands.

"The husbands protest and fight with their in-laws. This is one of the principle issues surrounding women workers," Joko said.

The returning TKW also faces social problems.

"Consider, for example, the price of land. In a remote village such as this the land per 14 square meter costs Rp 3 million (US$320). Five years ago, it was still around Rp 300,000."

Wahidin, 46, a local resident from Cihonje village, told the Post the difficulties faced by TKW families. Both his wife and daughter have worked overseas.

"My wife started working in Saudi Arabia four years ago. Meanwhile, my daughter is still in a dormitory (belonging to a manpower agent) in Jakarta. She will be sent to work in Hong Kong," Wahidin said.

"Husbands and wives separate because one of them goes to work overseas. It hasn't happened to us, though. Praise God we can still take good care of ourselves."

Karso, 35, from the same village, said his wife had been working in Saudi Arabia for a number of years. He said he was sick with worry because it had been five months since he last had contact with her.

"I don't know why. I hope that nothing has happened there. I'm still faithful and waiting for her," Karso said.

"Some Saudi people actually want to exploit women. Our female workers, if they work with their landlords there, are never considered. Nor can they smile at the landlord ... if they do, it's the same as giving him a green light," said Tahyudin, 46, a Cihonje resident who had worked in Saudi Arabia beginning in 1992 and had returned to Indonesia last year.

The culture of Indonesian people, especially Javanese people, is to be friendly, Tahyudin said, and this was often misunderstood by Saudi men.

"That's why our female workers are often sexually abused in Saudi Arabia," Tahyudin said.

Narsidah, 30, a Banyumas resident and former TKW in Hong Kong, now handles cases of mistreatment of overseas workers through the United Nation's Development Fund For Woman (UNIFEM).

She said the situation involving Indonesian overseas workers was very complex.

"There are actually cases where they become victims of the landlord. Indonesian migrant worker agencies (PJTKI) are also a problem because the women are not strong enough to cope with the cultures of their destination countries," Narsidah said.

She said, however, some female migrant workers had been ganjen (deliberately flirtatious).

"I've handled cases where the women deliberately wanted to have children with the foreigner. They said they had wanted their child to inherit the foreigner's qualities."

Boy Budiman SH, an official from Banyumas Regency's Migrant Worker's Department, said the rate of village people who had wanted to work overseas was still high and kept increasing, even though migrant workers have had many unfortunate experiences.

In 2007, he said, there had been 2,441 migrant workers from Banyumas.

"And until July of this year there have been 1,262 migrant workers who have left ... 90 percent have been women," Boy said.

He added most of them had gone to Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. Many had also gone to Saudi Arabia and others were sent to European countries.

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