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Millions of Asian and African women remain at high risk of exploitation and violence as Middle Eastern and Asian governments drag their feet on providing minimal protections to domestic workers, a report by Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

“Several governments have made concrete improvements for migrant domestic workers in the past five years, but in general, reforms have been slow, incremental and hard-fought,” HRW women’s rights researcher Nisha Varia said in a statement made available to the Jakarta Globe.

“Jordan deserves credit for including domestic work in its labor law, but enforcement remains a big concern. Singapore has prosecuted physical abuse against domestic workers vigorously, but fails to guarantee them even one day off a week.”

Titled “Slow Reform: Protection of Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia and the Middle East,” the 26-page report, released ahead of International Labor Day on May 1, reviews conditions in eight countries with large numbers of migrant domestic workers: Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Singapore and Malaysia.

“Reforms often encounter stiff resistance both from employers used to having a domestic worker on call around the clock and labor brokers profiting handsomely off a poorly regulated system,” Varia said. “Governments should make protecting these vulnerable workers a priority.”

The report says reforms on regulating domestic work are taking place not only at the national level but globally.

In recognition of the importance of protecting a major pool of workers that has been historically neglected, members of the International Labor Organization will begin formal discussions in June to establish global labor standards for domestic work. Lebanon, Bahrain and Jordan support legally binding standards, while Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates support a nonbinding recommendation.

Singapore and Kuwait did not submit official responses.

Indonesia is one of the largest suppliers of migrant workers, with 4.3 million Indonesians working in 42 countries, according to the National Board for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers. Not included are an estimated two million to four million abroad illegally. In 2008, migrants remitted $8.2 billion their families across the archipelago.

Anis Hidayah, director of labor watchdog Migrant Care, said the HRW report confirmed that “absence of political will is rampant” in countries where migrant workers come from and are employed. Anis said Indonesia must first clean up its own backyard, where a long-awaited law to recognize domestic workers as part of the formal work force remains in the pipeline and the revision of a labor law formally recognizing them is elusive.

Rosstiawati, director of overseas workers’ placement at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, acknowledged that agreements with several countries were slow in coming.

“We are still waiting for settlements of memorandums of understanding with Malaysia and Kuwait at the moment,” she said, adding that the two countries claimed to have issues to settle internally first.

Rosstiawati said Indonesia would try to push forward the issue with Malaysia next month at a convention of the Asean Committee of Migrant Workers, where Indonesia is one of four countries tasked with making a draft of a regional agreement on migrant workers’ protection.

“The problem is that the receiving countries are still reluctant to make the agreement legally binding,” she said.

Receiving countries, represented by Malaysia and Thailand, refuse to recognize illegal migrants from origin countries, thereby excluding them from any protection.

Abdul Malik Harahap, acting director general of labor training and placement at the ministry, said protection would be given in the form of basic rights for workers. “Domestic workers will get a certain amount of days off in a month, and their working hours will be regulated,” he said.

Malik said Indonesia had agreed with Lebanon to start sending workers to some parts of that country, and ministers from Indonesia and Qatar had signed an agreement on sending nurses and paramedics to work at hospitals in the latter.

Meanwhile, the National Police are calling on anyone planning to mark International Labor Day, or May Day, on Saturday to abide by the law. Police have prohibited ralliers from using state symbols or involving live animals in events.

“All demonstrators should respect the law or they will have to face the consequences,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in February took offense that protesters at a rally in the busy Hotel Indonesia traffic circle had brought with them a water buffalo to symbolize the president, who they claimed shared the same characteristics as the beast — big, stupid and lazy. The police have since banned the use of animals in demonstrations.