Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
The Special Rapporteur on the human rights
of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, visited Indonesia from 12-21 December and travelled
to border areas near Singapore where he saw the return programme for migrants,
mainly deportees from abroad, and also departure centres where migrant workers
are given training to adapt to the various countries where they’ll work.
<P>“Increasingly
Indonesian migrants are women, recruited abroad often for domestic work, [and
they] do not enjoy adequate legal protection and have limited access to social
services,” Mr. Bustamante said, adding that women domestic workers who had
returned told him about “a wide range of human rights abuses” in the
countries where they worked.</P><P>Such abuses include “extremely long hours
of work without overtime pay, no rest days, incomplete and irregular payment of
wages, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse,” Mr. Bustamante said, calling
on Indonesia to follow-up on the treatment of such workers by labour agencies,
as well as to end all illegal recruitment and exploitation by these agencies.</P><P>He
also urged Indonesia’s authorities to ensure that domestic law and its implementation
complies with international obligations to protect the rights of women as defined
in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
to which Indonesia is a party.</P><P>Mr. Bustamante also pointed out that Indonesia’s
Government “bears some responsibility towards its nationals living and working
abroad, particularly when their rights are abused.” Further, he said that
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the media, police and other groups had
a role to play in protecting migrants living in Indonesia and the rights of Indonesian
workers abroad.</P><P>Referring to a Memorandum of Understanding signed between
Indonesia and Malaysia in May, the Special Rapporteur said he regretted that “representatives
of civil society, including NGOs were not involved,” highlighting that its
provisions addressed the interests of employers and recruitment agencies “without
equal consideration” for the human rights of the migrants themselves.</P><P>Mr.
Bustamante said he was encouraged that Indonesia’s National Legislature has
agreed to discuss the signature of the 1990 International Convention on the Protection
of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families in early 2008,
however he stressed the need to raise public awareness about this Convention and
encouraged the Government to ratify it.</P><P>The Special Rapporteur, who is unpaid
and serves in an independent personal capacity, will now provide Indonesia’s
Government with recommendations on these issues in his report to the Human Rights
Council.
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