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Vicious cycle of broken homes entraps generations of migrant worker families
For migrant workers, leaving home to support their families does not always solve their domestic hardships.
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Family to support: Migrant workers from South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi, together with their children, disembark from a vessel at Tunon Taka Port in Nunukan regency, North Kalimantan, on March 6. (Antara/M. Rusman)
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fter 22 years working as a migrant worker in Singapore, Mudaya Tatik, 50, was finally reunited with her husband in Blitar, East Java.
But what should have been a happy time became the beginning of a tragedy as Isnan, 58, was found dead eight months later, believed to have committed suicide.
Tatik found her husband’s body in their bedroom on Monday, only one hour after she had left home to take their 7-year-old granddaughter to school in Jabung village, Talun district.
The police have recorded the death as a suicide. "An autopsy was conducted to determine the cause of death," Blitar Police detective and crime unit chief Adj. Comr. Sodik Efendi told The Jakarta Post, Tuesday.
Isnan wrote in a note left on the bedroom wall, “I love my daughter and granddaughter”, and expressed his wish to be “buried in front of the house next to the lemon tree”.
The police said they received testimony from Isnan's older brother that before the incident, Isnan had said he lacked dignity in front of his wife after Tatik had returned home for good. Tatik had spent many years working as a housemaid in Singapore.
"According to his brother, Isnan said he’d rather end his life than get a divorce," Sodik said.
