ID :
79955
Tue, 09/15/2009 - 08:43
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https://www.oananews.org//node/79955
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News Focus: MALAYSIA URGED TO RESPECT AGREEMENT WITH RI ON MORATORIUM
By Eliswan Azly
Jakarta, Sept 9 (ANTARA) - Malaysian has again been urged to respect its agreement with Indonesia to suspend the dispatch of workers from Indonesia to the neighboring country.
Moh Jumhur Hidayat, the head of the National Agency for the Protection and Placement of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BPN2TKI), warned Malaysia to respect the agreement concerned.
"Malaysia often makes itself a nuisance to Indonesia. Despite the existence of the bilateral agreement on a temporary halt in the sending of informal Indonesian workers to Malaysia, Indonesian manpower in reality continues to flow to malaysia through other ways. So, we wonder, if it is much better now to stop all worker despatches to that country," Jumhur said in a dialogue with relevant parties engaged in the sending of workers in Jember on Sunday.
According to him, Malaysia proved to be continuing to employ Indonesian workers who enter that country with general passports.
"If this is the case, we'd better stop the sending of all workers either those to be employed at plantations or in other sectors," he said.
At least 2.2 millin Indonesians are now working in Malaysia and 25 percent of them work as house helpers.
"The most important thing is that we have to give priority to the interest of our nationals. Don't let the torture of Indonesian female workers happen again," he said, adding that Malaysia was allowing Indonesian illegal workers in through informal channels in order to keep them in a weak bargaining position.
"In order to keep the salaries of Indonesian illegal workers low, they make he police frighten the workers from time to time. So the illegals can arrested and deported without their employers having to pay their salaries," Jumhur said.
For this reason, Jumhur called on Indonesian police not to hesitate to capture the middlemen who were engaged in human trafficking and to bring them to justice.
"The concept on human trafficking is quite simple. If some individuals move a group of people from one place to another, let alone to a foreign country without any permit, it is exactly an act of human trafficking," he said.
Regarding human trafficking in Malaysia, Jumhur said he believed most of the victims or 90 percent of them were Indonesian. "This happens because it is easy to go to Malaysia so that many of them have become victims of middlemen."
Indonesia has finally decided to suspend the sending of workers to the neighboring country, particularly of those to be employed in the informal sector, after a series of maltreatment cases involving Indonesian female workers in the neighboring country.
Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said the suspension would last until the two countries could agree on improvements in the clauses of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the manpower field they had signed in 2006.
The suspension followed reports of abuse of Indonesian workers in Malaysia. One of them was an incident which happened to Siti Hajar, who was physically abused by her employer and not paid for three years.
Proposed amendments to the memorandum would would require Malaysian employers to give Indonesian workers a day off each week and also provisions on their minimum leave, pay, political, educational and social rights.
Erman said Indonesia also would insist that workers have the right to keep their passports. Migrant workers often have their ' passports impounded by their employers. The government would also try to improve the manpower recruitment system and gradually end the sending of workers to Malaysia illegally.
In the meantime, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said the Indonesian government had studied the impact of stoppage in the sending of migrant workers to Malaysia
It would be a good step for Indonesia to stop the sending of its migrant workers to Malaysia but the government needed to study its impact first.
"We will evaluate its impact on the informal sector," Faizasyah said, adding the agreement signed by the Indonesian government and its Malaysian counterpart in 2006 did not regulate matters on the stoppage of workers dispatches.
The agreement only regulates the framework of placing Indonesian workers in the formal and informal sectors in Malaysia.
So, if there is a plan to stop sending workers, the decision to be made should involve the relevant agencies such as the manpower service.
He said that there were several proposals made by the foreign ministry which were designed to avoid violence against the Indonesian workers abroad.
Among the proposals included the conditions to send skilled workers or those who have special skills. This is because the sector for the placement of such workers is clear and its supervision is much easier.
Faizasyah said it was a good idea to temporarily stop the sending of Indonesian workers to Malaysia while taking anticipatory steps on how to adopt an attitude towards the problems faced by Indonesian workers in the informal sector.
He said that supervision on workers in the informal sector was difficult to carry out. It is quite difficult to monitor a violence against a domestic helper in a family.
The Indonesian decision was reported to have thrown Malaysian maid agencies into confusion as Indonesia announced that it would temporarily stop sending domestic workers pending a review of a memorandum of understanding on migrant workers.
At stake are millions of ringgit which have been paid to Indonesian migrant workers' placement agencies.
The government has stressed that the moratorium only applied to the informal sector, which refers to domestic helpers. The move will affect thousands of Indonesian workers hoping to seek employment in Malaysia.
According to the ministry, Indonesia sends 3,000 workers to Malaysia every month to work as domestic helpers.
The affected workers would be diverted to the Middle East and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Subhan said.
Indonesia's move has taken the Malaysian Human Resources Ministry by surprise. Putrajaya has yet to be formally informed of the request to review the MoU and temporary suspension. ***3***
Jakarta, Sept 9 (ANTARA) - Malaysian has again been urged to respect its agreement with Indonesia to suspend the dispatch of workers from Indonesia to the neighboring country.
Moh Jumhur Hidayat, the head of the National Agency for the Protection and Placement of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BPN2TKI), warned Malaysia to respect the agreement concerned.
"Malaysia often makes itself a nuisance to Indonesia. Despite the existence of the bilateral agreement on a temporary halt in the sending of informal Indonesian workers to Malaysia, Indonesian manpower in reality continues to flow to malaysia through other ways. So, we wonder, if it is much better now to stop all worker despatches to that country," Jumhur said in a dialogue with relevant parties engaged in the sending of workers in Jember on Sunday.
According to him, Malaysia proved to be continuing to employ Indonesian workers who enter that country with general passports.
"If this is the case, we'd better stop the sending of all workers either those to be employed at plantations or in other sectors," he said.
At least 2.2 millin Indonesians are now working in Malaysia and 25 percent of them work as house helpers.
"The most important thing is that we have to give priority to the interest of our nationals. Don't let the torture of Indonesian female workers happen again," he said, adding that Malaysia was allowing Indonesian illegal workers in through informal channels in order to keep them in a weak bargaining position.
"In order to keep the salaries of Indonesian illegal workers low, they make he police frighten the workers from time to time. So the illegals can arrested and deported without their employers having to pay their salaries," Jumhur said.
For this reason, Jumhur called on Indonesian police not to hesitate to capture the middlemen who were engaged in human trafficking and to bring them to justice.
"The concept on human trafficking is quite simple. If some individuals move a group of people from one place to another, let alone to a foreign country without any permit, it is exactly an act of human trafficking," he said.
Regarding human trafficking in Malaysia, Jumhur said he believed most of the victims or 90 percent of them were Indonesian. "This happens because it is easy to go to Malaysia so that many of them have become victims of middlemen."
Indonesia has finally decided to suspend the sending of workers to the neighboring country, particularly of those to be employed in the informal sector, after a series of maltreatment cases involving Indonesian female workers in the neighboring country.
Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said the suspension would last until the two countries could agree on improvements in the clauses of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the manpower field they had signed in 2006.
The suspension followed reports of abuse of Indonesian workers in Malaysia. One of them was an incident which happened to Siti Hajar, who was physically abused by her employer and not paid for three years.
Proposed amendments to the memorandum would would require Malaysian employers to give Indonesian workers a day off each week and also provisions on their minimum leave, pay, political, educational and social rights.
Erman said Indonesia also would insist that workers have the right to keep their passports. Migrant workers often have their ' passports impounded by their employers. The government would also try to improve the manpower recruitment system and gradually end the sending of workers to Malaysia illegally.
In the meantime, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said the Indonesian government had studied the impact of stoppage in the sending of migrant workers to Malaysia
It would be a good step for Indonesia to stop the sending of its migrant workers to Malaysia but the government needed to study its impact first.
"We will evaluate its impact on the informal sector," Faizasyah said, adding the agreement signed by the Indonesian government and its Malaysian counterpart in 2006 did not regulate matters on the stoppage of workers dispatches.
The agreement only regulates the framework of placing Indonesian workers in the formal and informal sectors in Malaysia.
So, if there is a plan to stop sending workers, the decision to be made should involve the relevant agencies such as the manpower service.
He said that there were several proposals made by the foreign ministry which were designed to avoid violence against the Indonesian workers abroad.
Among the proposals included the conditions to send skilled workers or those who have special skills. This is because the sector for the placement of such workers is clear and its supervision is much easier.
Faizasyah said it was a good idea to temporarily stop the sending of Indonesian workers to Malaysia while taking anticipatory steps on how to adopt an attitude towards the problems faced by Indonesian workers in the informal sector.
He said that supervision on workers in the informal sector was difficult to carry out. It is quite difficult to monitor a violence against a domestic helper in a family.
The Indonesian decision was reported to have thrown Malaysian maid agencies into confusion as Indonesia announced that it would temporarily stop sending domestic workers pending a review of a memorandum of understanding on migrant workers.
At stake are millions of ringgit which have been paid to Indonesian migrant workers' placement agencies.
The government has stressed that the moratorium only applied to the informal sector, which refers to domestic helpers. The move will affect thousands of Indonesian workers hoping to seek employment in Malaysia.
According to the ministry, Indonesia sends 3,000 workers to Malaysia every month to work as domestic helpers.
The affected workers would be diverted to the Middle East and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Subhan said.
Indonesia's move has taken the Malaysian Human Resources Ministry by surprise. Putrajaya has yet to be formally informed of the request to review the MoU and temporary suspension. ***3***
