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Lawmakers Say No to Indonesia Migrant Bans
Anita Rachman | November 04, 2009

An Indonesian migrant worker looks on from behind a glass door as she waits for her documents to be processed after arriving from Malaysia. (Photo: Beawiharta, Reuters) An Indonesian migrant worker looks on from behind a glass door as she waits for her documents to be processed after arriving from Malaysia. (Photo: Beawiharta, Reuters)
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Members of Indonesia's House of Representatives on Wednesday spoke out against a possible ban by the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry on workers being sent to some countries in the Middle East, stating that a moratorium would solve nothing so long as the government failed to reform the poor management of the migrant worker recruitment and training system.

Nizar Shihab, deputy chairman of House Commission IX, which oversees labor affairs, said a moratorium would be pointless if the government failed to improve the system.

“I don’t think we need another moratorium. What we should do is monitor the country’s manpower agencies,” he said. “I think the moratorium with Malaysia should be the last.”

The ministry in July banned sending workers to Malaysia.

“Look at the [succession of] ministers [of manpower]. How many times have they imposed moratoriums? They do it every couple of years, and each time they try to reform the manpower agencies, which are basically just hit-and-run merchants that care little about properly training their workers,” he said.

“We need to improve in this area,” he said. “But don’t burn the house to kill the rats.”

Nizar was responding to a statement by Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar, who said he would consider temporarily stopping the flow of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia and Jordan based on staff studies that showed that both countries failed to provide enough assistance to Indonesian migrant workers when they faced problems.

Another member of the House commission, Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, also urged changes to the system, citing as an example the need to streamline the bureaucracy of migrant worker management and eliminate overlapping powers.

According to ministry data, some two million Indonesian migrants work in the Middle East, with more than a million of them working in Saudi Arabia. Indonesia is scheduled to repatriate 1,750 migrant workers from the Middle East because of various problems there.

Although Muhaimin said that a moratorium would not be implemented without a thorough review, he added that such a move may be necessary in order to secure [new] memorandums of understanding with the countries concerned.

He said that the problems of migrant workers were compounded by the number of workers being sent overseas illegally.