Indonesia to stop sending domestic workers abroad by 2017

Indonesia to stop sending domestic workers abroad by 2017

2012-01-05 20:23:02 GMT+7 (ICT)

JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) -- The government of Indonesia has said it will stop sending domestic workers abroad by 2017 following numerous cases of abuse, the Jakarta Post reported on Thursday.

The Manpower and Transmigration Ministry on Wednesday noted several cases of abuses, murder and executions involving Indonesian workers. "The implementation will be tough, given that Indonesia sends abroad around 650,000 migrant workers every year," Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said.

The minister said that if Indonesia continues sending domestic workers overseas, they will have to be treated the same as formal workers. He added that migrant workers have the right to limited working hours, days off, a minimum wage and insurance.

Last year, the Indonesian government announced that it would halt the sending of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia starting from August 1 after two female migrant workers were spared from beheading. One of the workers was convicted of the murder of her employer's child, while the other one was sentenced to death after being found guilty of using black magic to inflict pain on her employer.

One of the most media-covered cases last year was the execution of migrant worker Ruyati binti Satubi. She was executed on June 18 in Saudi Arabia after a court found her guilty of murdering the wife of a Saudi businessman. The Indonesian woman worked as a housekeeper and confessed to killing her employer after a fight.

There are around five million Indonesians working abroad, with two million in Malaysia, one million in Saudi Arabia and the remainder in other Asian nations, Europe and the United States.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-01-05