I

ndonesia has its work cut out for it if it intends to implement the stringent principles outlined in a draft resolution on violence against women migrant workers that was passed last Tuesday during the 66th United Nations General Assembly session.

A spokeswoman at the Indonesian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, Elleonora Tambunan, said the resolution did not stipulate any punishments for incompliant member states.

“However, this UN resolution can be a platform for organizations within the UN, including the International Labor Organization, to arrange their policies,” she told The Jakarta Post on Monday from New York.

She said the resolution had been initiated by Indonesia and the Philippines, and was later on cosponsored by Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, the United States and Uruguay.

Indonesia and the Philippines are the two largest labor exporting countries in the region.

According to the draft, the General Assembly stressed the shared responsibility of all stakeholders, in particular countries of origin, transit and destination, relevant regional and international organizations, the private sector and civil society, in promoting an environment that prevents and addresses violence against women migrant workers, including in the context of discrimination.

These stakeholders will need joint and collaborative approaches and strategies at the national, bilateral, regional and international levels in order to meet that goal, the draft stipulates.

The General Assembly also encouraged member states to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to, among other relevant international labor conventions, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, it stipulates.

Indonesia signed that convention in 2004 but has not yet passed it into law. Elleonora said that Indonesia would ratify the convention.

University of Indonesia international relations expert Syamsul Hadi said it was an improvement for the United Nations, whose resolutions usually related to traditional matters like border conflicts, cease-fire and urges for peace, to now try to get into human security matters, specifically on women issues.

But Indonesia would only embarrass itself if it does not immediately ratify the international convention.

“One thing that needs attention in the international context is that this will not be lip service from Indonesia, especially when this country, along with the Philippines, is the initiator of the resolution,” he told the Post.

“Indonesia should also take immediate steps in its diplomacy to urge countries, like Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, to which it sends many women migrant workers, to immediately ratify [labor-related] international conventions.”

Sharing similar concern, Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah said that the posture of Indonesian government on the international stage was 180 degrees different to the situation at home, but said she expected the government would make some positive changes immediately.

“The Indonesian government should improve its bilateral and multilateral frameworks alike on migrant workers because the UN also knows that these frameworks have yet to contain human rights values,” she told the Post.

Negotiations on the draft of the ASEAN Framework Instrument on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers have stalled since a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December in 2009.