Harassment against ‘TKW’

The increasing harassment and abuse of female Indonesian migrant workers (locally called TKW) in Malaysia has led the Indonesian government to recently issue a temporary policy stopping the flow of TKWs to the country. The importance of this policy is not only to reduce pressure from the public on the government, but also to minimize any further abuse of migrant workers. However, the policy is of course, not problem-free.

Apart from the potential increase of TKW “black markets”, the policy will no doubt slow down current efforts to reduce the increasing number of unemployed workers caused by the recent global financial crisis. Thus, better alternatives must be sought.

An internal policy reform particularly of the recruitment process of TKW at the village level is considered one of the better policy solutions to reducing the harassment of TKW. The recruitment process at the village level is important because it will screen potential TKWs, and hence determine the quality of TKWs that are going to be sent overseas to work. In other words, unprofessional and poorly-organized recruitment processes at the village level will not provide good quality TKWs. To address this problem, at least two things should be done.

First, village offices and the local manpower office must get involved in the recruitment process at the village level. This is essential as both institutions have so far shown no significant role in the recruitment of TKWs at the village level. Their current roles are limited to administrative bureaucracy, not in the selection process.

As a consequence, potential migrant workers at the village level are trapped in the hands of the “mafia” of local village sponsors that merely recruit TKWs on the basis of the number of TKWs recruited and the economic profit without considering their quality. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that the quality of TKWs sent abroad does not meet expectations, even if they have been previously trained by the employment recruitment agency (PPTKI).

However, direct involvement of the village office and the local manpower office in the recruitment process at the village level should be tightly controlled and monitored by other relevant and independent institutions, particularly NGOs. This is meant to shorten the long process of TKW recruitment and minimize corrupt practices and irregularities at the village level.

Secondly, a policy to formally regulate the number of local village sponsors, the inner sponsors and the PPTKI is also necessary. Local village sponsors and inner sponsors need to be regulated because most of them are unregistered at the village office and/or at the local manpower office. In fact, they often do not have any connection to the official PPTKI. While for the PPTKI, tight regulations should be imposed especially in respect to the quality of the staff and management as well as the infrastructures available for training and educating potential migrant workers. These regulations will not only produce better quality migrant workers, but more importantly, the management quality of recruitment will increase.

Apart from recruitment process reform, the government must implement strict rules or laws to protect our TKWs abroad. However, for better implementation, it is important for Indonesia to learn from the Philippines.

By passing the 1995 Act on Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos, the Philippine government not only protected their migrant workers abroad, but also ensured the rights and obligations of returning Philippine migrant workers. As a result, there are almost no illegal Philippine migrant workers abroad, with less harassment and violation committed by their foreign employers.

In addition, the Philippine government also gives full support to their migrant workers (including female workers) abroad. Such support is not given by the Labor Minister and the President only, but the whole nation. This may indicate that migrant workers in the Philippines are valued more than just housemaids.

While this kind of attitude is certainly related to the socio-cultural values of the Filipinos, such nationalistic support appears to have both a psychological and political impact on the employers or the employment agencies in the receiving countries, making them more likely to respect Philippine workers’ rights and well-being.

Moreover, tripartite labor contract agreements (i.e. TKW, the employer and the employment recruitment agency), as well as among employment agencies in Indonesia and the receiving countries should also be implemented in order to minimize the abuse of Indonesian migrant workers.

To make this work, the Indonesian labor attachés or the embassies in the receiving countries need to give their full support and assistance, such as providing lawyers and modest financial assistance for our TKWs in their fight against any parties (the employer and/or the employment agency) that harm them.

Finally, the government and/or private companies need to facilitate the provision of insurance scheme for TKWs. This is important to avoid problems associated with accident, death, job losses and illness that may occur to our TKWs abroad. The insurance premium can be paid by the TKWs themselves or by the respective employers through wage reduction, or by Indonesian banks from remittances received or transferred from the workers abroad.