From Migrant Worker to Lecturer

For many decades, we have read and heard so many tragic stories about the faith of Indonesian Migrant Workers in foreign countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

All that has been caused by very poor protection provided by the Indonesian government and its representatives a.k.a embassies and consulates in countries where the Migrant Workers lived.

For example, when a Migrant Worker come to work in Saudi Arabia, they should give their passports to their bosses, and not allowed to keep phone numbers and addresses of our embassy and consulate, therefore they cannot do anything if something went wrong to them.

For that reasons, many of our Migrant Workers were victimized i.e. humiliated, raped, tortured, or even killed by their bosses. Some of them were sentenced to death on allegations of murdering their bosses.

Due to above, I was surprised when I saw on Trans-7 TV this morning, story about Nuryati Solapari (click here), a 32 years old Migrant Worker from Serang, Banten, who worked in Saudi Arabia after finishing High School, in order to be able to save to study at a university.

Before she left for the town of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia in 1998, the migrant worker recruitment agency did not provide her with any training, but they gave her a training certificate so as to obey regulations.
She therefore has to learn about her work and about local culture and tradition from fellow Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.

And for her personal security, she wrote important things like passport number, phone and address of the Indonesian embassy/consulate in Saudi Arabia, not in an ordinary way but by knitting them on her pasmina/ scarf so that her boss would not find out about them.

After two years and eight months, she came home and studied at the Faculty of Law of the University Sultan Agung Tirtayasa in Serang, where she graduated in only three and a half years (click here). Afterwards, she got her Master in law degree.

Currently Nuryati is working as a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the above mentioned university. Beside that, she also has a license to practice as an Advocate/lawyer.

Nuryati frequently gave motivations and shared her experiences with candidate Migrant Workers, and because of that she has received the Indonesian Migrant Workers Award in 2010, and award from the government of Saudi Arabia.

I hope that other Indonesian Migrant Workers would follow Nuryati's above mentioned steps, and the Indonesian government would strictly control the training and dispatch of Migrant Workers abroad, and request the government of said foreign countries to provide much better protection for them

Photo :  Courtesy of Era Muslim.

May Day 2012

Today, 1 May, is the international Labors Day (a.k.a May Day) which is celebrated by labors in most countries of the world.

1 May is a national holiday and celebrated officially in more than 80 countries, and celebrated unofficially in many other countries. Usually, workers and labor unions celebrate by demonstrating and marching in the streets.

According to Wikipedia, 1 May was declared as the international Labor Day by the World Socialist Congress in Paris, France, in 1889, to commemorate the general strike by thousands of workers in Chicago, U.S.A, to demand for eight-hours workday. At that time, an unknown person threw dynamite at the Police, and in response the Police fired at the workers killing a dozen demonstrators and several of their own officers.

In Indonesia, 1 May was first celebrated in the year 1920. But during the government of former President Suharto from March 1966 until 21 May 1998, celebration of May Day was forbidden because it was regarded as a Communist activity.

Since 1999, May Day celebration was allowed Indonesia although unofficially, all of which were carried out quite peacefully in cities like Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Medan, Makasar, Manado, etc. to demand the protection of workers rights. None of them can be considered as "endangering public order".

Today, the celebration in Jakarta was carried out at the Gelora Bung Karno Soccer Stadium in Senayan, in front of the Presidential Palace, House of Representatives. Tens of thousands of workers participated in the celebration but it was quite peaceful except that it caused very bad traffic jam in many streets of the city.

Among the issues being protested by the workers were Workers Welfare, Health, Retirement, Outsourcing, subsidy for workers, etc.
Beside that, they also demand that the government provide better protection for our Migrant Workers abroad, including investigate on the shooting of three of our workers in Malaysia.

Protection for Migrant Workers

The government is preparing to ratify a United Nations convention that would provide better protections for Indonesian citizens working in other countries. Please find below an article on the New Strait Times regarding this matter.

Indonesia to join convention on migrant workers

Indonesia will join other countries as a party to the United Nations convention on protecting migrant workers, a Law and Human Rights Ministry official said.

"We are preparing the academic draft (of the necessary regulations)," Indonesia''s Antara news agency quoted the ministry's director general of human rights, Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, as saying on the sidelines of a function to mark the 2009 World Human Rights Day here on Thursday.

Harkristuti said Indonesia was making preparations to ratify the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

Indonesia's plan to ratify the convention was laid down in the 2009 National Action Plan for Human Rights, she said.

In the near future, Indonesia would become a party to the UN convention, she said.

All processes related to the country''s plan to ratify the convention would be discussed at an inter-ministerial meeting because the matter was included in the National Action Plan for Human Rights, she said.

Although the discussion would involve a number of ministries it would be the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry that would play a great role in ratifying the convention, she said.

Indonesia signed the convention in September 2004.

The government has come under fire from many non-governmental organisations for not ratifying the convention.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said recently Indonesia would ratify the convention within two years, noting that it was preparing the necessary regulations.

The Law and Human Rights Ministry was one of the agencies celebrating World Human Rights Day which falls on December 10.

Indonesian Migrant Workers

The current global economic crisis has caused the deportation of many Indonesians Migrant Workers from many foreign countries where they have been working.

According to Antara, last year 34,595 of those workers have been deported from Malaysia.
At the same year, according to PAB Indonesia, 23,644 of them have been deported from Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, our government’s official website reported that President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono has promised that his government will make efforts to protect those migrant workers.
And in connection with the United Nations Summit Meeting on Racism now held in Geneva, Swiss, according to The Jakarta Post our delegation has urged global willingness to address complaints of migrant workers, especially those employed in the domestic sectors. We also requested for a better complaint-filing mechanism for discriminatory acts against migrant workers and unlawful treatment by the employers.

Considering the fact that those Migrant Workers have been contributing a large sum of foreign currency badly needed by our country, I hope that a much better and more serious efforts would be made to protect those workers.