"In the past two decades, Indonesia has become one of the world's biggest migrant worker suppliers. Therefore, migrant workers are an important part of Indonesian manpower that the government must protect by among others benefiting from bilateral and multilateral agreements," ILO deputy director for Indonesia Michiko Miyamoto said as quoted by Antara news agency.

As the world's second-largest migrant worker supplier, Indonesia every year sends around 700,000 migrant workers abroad, particularly to East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, she said. Of those, nearly 78 percent are employed as domestic helpers.

"Although the migrant domestic helpers are Indonesia's second biggest foreign exchange earner, many of these 'foreign exchange heroes' suffer from exploitation and torture during the migration process, both in Indonesia and abroad," she said.

To protect its migrant workers overseas, she said, Indonesia can refer to the ILO document on multilateral framework on labor migration non-binding principles and guidelines for a rights-based approach to labor migration. (asw)

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