T

he Manpower Ministry has said its pilot project to send a limited number of workers to Saudi Arabia will go ahead despite reservations caused by the execution of an Indonesian migrant worker in October and an outright ban on domestic workers headed to the Middle East.

The ministry’s secretary-general Khairul Anwar gave an assurance that the project’s objective was to guarantee workers’ protection.

“We have to make sure that we send people with the right qualifications and protection in accordance with the agreement we made [with Saudi Arabia],” he told reporters on Friday.

In October, Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri and his Saudi counterpart Ahmed Sulaiman Al-Rajhi launched the “One Channel System”, a limited trial to send a certain number of migrant workers to select destinations in Saudi Arabia.

Only weeks after the program’s launch, Hanif said the scheme would be reviewed following the execution by Saudi authorities of Indonesian domestic worker Tuti Tursilawati without prior notice to her family or consular staff.

Khairul said both sides were ready with the online infrastructure, and insisted that any workers headed to the kingdom once the systems were integrated could only do so through the system.

Even so, he said the ministry was still in the preparation process, training staff at several locations, including one supported by the Tahir Foundation.

Under the new scheme, only specific classes of worker are to be trialed in the system: babysitters, family cooks and caregivers for the elderly, as well as family drivers, childcare workers and housekeepers.

Meanwhile, ministry spokesperson R. Soes Hindharno said the latest developments in the bilateral relations between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia would not affect the development of the program, which was undergoing a selection process for qualified placement agencies from both countries.

“We are not sending them right now because the job orders don’t even exist yet,” said Soes, a former director of migrant worker placement and protection at the ministry, on Friday.

“There is still a long way to go, actually. The Saudis must put in a job order first, and then we train the workers for around 63 days for competency certifications. Only then can they depart to Saudi Arabia.”

Riyadh is hopeful the project could be used as the basis for sending some 30,000 Indonesian workers to the kingdom within the next six months as part of the trial phase, effectively lifting a government-imposed moratorium on sending domestic workers to 19 Middle Eastern countries, which has been in effect since 2015.

However, the ministry insisted the new system would not negate the existing ban, as Jakarta moves away from sending informal-sector workers as domestic servants.

Migrant CARE executive director Wahyu Susilo said the ministry should do more to consult with other relevant stakeholders and evaluate the program, noting that his advocacy group had been left out of the loop. “Even if they want to try out sending workers to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is actually the worst option. They should’ve tried countries that are more open like Qatar, or those that have abolished the kafala [sponsorship] system,” he said.