There are two different interests here. In the first case, the House factions feared possible retaliation from village heads and officials, who could persuade village residents to boycott the political parties and their legislative candidates in the February 2024 general election.

As for the Domestic Workers Protection Bill, the legislators are aware that many, if not most, domestic employers aren’t interested in raising the wages of their workers and providing them with more benefits.

In the meantime, the market mechanism has forced the government to lift the eight-year-long moratorium on sending Indonesian migrant workers in the Middle East, which was imposed due to the rampant abuses employers perpetrated against their Indonesian maids, despite the mechanism in place to protect migrant workers.

The Foreign Ministry has often complained about the procedure to recruit young women for placement as domestic workers abroad. Indonesian embassies and consulates in the destination countries have had to step in and help citizens who had fallen victim to the messy migrant worker recruitment system.

Thousands of our countrymen are now stranded overseas in a number of Indonesian diplomatic missions after they became victims of human trafficking, lured into working overseas illegally.

Indonesia’s migrant workers contribute much to state revenue. According to the World Bank in East Asia Pacific, migrant workers across the region sent home US$10 billion in 2022, with Indonesia being the fourth largest recipient of remittances after China, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Citing the World Bank data, Hariyanto Suwarno, chairman of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Association, said at least 9 million Indonesian migrant workers were scattered across the globe. Of these, 95 percent worked in the informal sector as housemaids in Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

There is a big discrepancy in data from Malaysia and Indonesia regarding the number of Indonesian migrant workers employed in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has recorded only 450,000 Indonesian workers, but their number hits 1.5 million according to the local Indonesian embassy. The huge difference indicates that many migrant workers entered Malaysia without the proper documents.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are prioritizing the revision of Village Law No. 6/2014 as a bill to accommodate the village officials’ desires, since the elections are just around the corner. The draft law revision stipulates that village heads can serve for a maximum two terms of nine years each, whereas the current law states that a village head serves for six years and can be reelected twice at the most.

The draft revision also doubles the central government’s Village Funds allocation from currently Rp 1 billion ($65,700) to Rp 2 billion.

Critics insist that the revision, if passed, will only create mini dictators at the lowest administrative rung. The country’s president, governors, mayors and regents, who are also directly elected by the people just like village heads, may only serve for a maximum of two five-year terms.

House Speaker Puan Maharani has promised that the revised law will be passed this year. Why? Because the nine House factions fear that the village heads will act on their threat and boycott them in next year’s elections.

In contrast, the House left the Domestic Workers Protection Bill untouched for 20 years. Only recently did the legislature agree to deliberate the bill, which is now included on the priority list of the 2023-2024 National Legislation Program.

Deliberation on the bill began in May, but it remains uncertain if the House will be able to pass the long-delayed bill into law this year.

If it does, the legislation will provide a legal basis for the state to guarantee protection of the rights of domestic workers. Until today, around 5 million domestic workers across the country are entirely dependent on the generosity of their employers.

But let’s not just blame the politicians. The millions of Indonesians who can afford to hire domestic workers are reluctant about complying with a law that protects domestic workers because it means spending more on their housemaids.

Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah said the bill aimed to protect domestic workers from all forms of abuse.

For example, the bill regulates domestic workers’ recruitment and their scope of work. Employers can directly hire domestic workers under a mutual agreement, but a third party or an employment agency can also provide labor recruitment services.

The bill also stipulates the relationship between employers and their domestic workers and the two parties’ rights and obligations, including employers’ responsibility in upskilling domestic workers.

It also contains a provision on settling disputes between the two parties, and any breach of agreement or violence against a domestic worker must be settled through the procedures outlined in the Criminal Code.

The bill looks promising for unskilled workers and if it is passed, at least it will provide legal certainty to domestic workers. Employers could look for loopholes, of course, and enforcing the new law might take years because recalcitrant employers might challenge it at the Constitutional Court.

The market mechanism will also test the efficacy of the law. If the supply of domestic workers exceeds the demand, then the government can do little to protect them.

Personally, I believe that government officials and politicians prefer to maintain the status quo. Money talks, and they care for migrant workers simply because they contribute significantly to the state coffers.

It was in 2015 that the government placed the moratorium on sending migrant workers to 19 Middle Eastern countries, following a series of cases of sexual abuse and forced labor against Indonesian migrant workers there. The ban was lifted earlier this month, partly because the destination countries agreed to improve their protection of Indonesia’s migrant workers.

Domestic workers employed in the country deserve the same protection from the state. As a nation, we should be ashamed if the House fails to pass the Domestic Workers Protection Bill into law this year.

The writer is senior editor at The Jakarta Post.