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espite government efforts to provide legal assistance to Indonesian criminal suspects overseas, as many as 236 Indonesian citizens face the death penalty in foreign countries, mostly on charges of drug trafficking, murder and adultery.

In Malaysia, most Indonesians on death row had been charged with drug offenses. Those facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia '€” which accounted for 25 percent of the total '€” had been charged with murder, adultery and using black magic, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Indonesian drug offenders were also facing the death sentence in China. Dozens other were scattered across several countries such as Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, said Tatang Budie Utama Razak, the Foreign Ministry'€™s director for legal aid and the protection of Indonesian nationals overseas, on Friday.

'€œSince 2011, about 165 Indonesians abroad have escaped the death penalty, some of whom were even acquitted on all charges, thanks to the hard work of our officials from the President down to those at our consulates and embassies,'€ he said.

Another official with the Foreign Ministry, who requested anonymity, said many Indonesians in Saudi Arabia had been charged with adultery. '€œMany of them have ended up on death row,'€ the official said.

The official acknowledged that some of the suspects were actually rape victims, but that a significant percentage of them had been charged for having extramarital affairs with Saudi men.

According to the official, data from Indonesian representative offices in Saudi Arabia showed that about 7,000 children were born from such affairs. '€œThe identities of their fathers are unclear. This should raise a serious concern because this is about our young generation too,'€ the official said.

The official said the government had worked to repatriate the children by providing temporary documents, though admitted that the children could have trouble obtaining official identity documents in Indonesia because they had no birth certificates and unknown fathers.

'€œThe government has tried to establish Islamic marriages for [the women] to help them obtain documents in Saudi Arabia before returning to Indonesia, but most of them were reluctant because they had been married to Indonesian men before going abroad to work,'€ the official added.

Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah said the number of Indonesians on death row abroad was alarming.

'€œIn addition to low wages and harsh labor conditions, the death penalty also threatens our migrant workers,'€ she was quoted as saying by Antara.

Untimely responses from the government to migrant worker issues had aggravated the situation, she said. '€œTo minimize or prevent it from happening in the future, local administrations who send their people working abroad should take more active roles,'€ said Anis.

Tatang with the Foreign Ministry said the government had tried hard to reduce Indonesian criminal cases abroad by limiting the number of unskilled workers sent overseas.

Workers without training and decent education, particularly those with faulty documents, were easy targets of abuse by foreigners, he added.

'€œWe continue to intensify our efforts to reach the 2017 goal of no single Indonesian employed as a housemaid,'€ he said.