They go overseas to support their families and they make an enormous contribution to the national economy, however the personal costs for Indonesia’s migrant workers are often extremely high, says Hesti Armiwulan, a member of the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham).

“The stories they tell us are very frightening and their rights are not respected,” she says.

“They can face violence from their employers and there are also rape cases, too many rape cases. Sometimes they aren’t paid their salary, or their passports or working documents might be withheld.”

Language can be another major barrier for Indonesians working in foreign countries, Hesti notes.

“They might not be able to speak Arabic but an agent finds work for them in an Arab country. They become very vulnerable to exploitation when they are not able to speak for themselves.”

Last year Komnas Ham launched a national inquiry to assess the situation and identify ways to better protect the rights of the estimated six million Indonesians who are working in countries across the Middle East, South East Asia and South Asia.

Of that number, the vast majority are women and only around half have the necessary documentation.

“We’ve visited many areas around the country to understand the situation on the ground and to identify the real problems that people face,” says Hesti. “We’ve gone to the villages, we’ve visited transit areas and we’ve interviewed many migrant workers.”

“There’s limited protection under the law. So a key goal of the inquiry is to push the government to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families and to make other important changes to laws and regulations.”

Regional cooperation

According to Hesti, close cooperation with other national human rights institutions (NHRIs) is crucial in developing effective strategies to protect and promote the rights of migrant workers.

To help achieve this goal, Komnas Ham has signed Memoranda of Understanding with the national human rights institutions of Jordan and Korea, both receiving countries for Indonesian migrant workers.

“It’s also one of the priority areas of cooperation for the four ASEAN national human rights commissions,” says Hesti, adding that a joint research project on migrant workers by the NHRIs of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines will be released shortly.

“We are keen to take the results of this research and use it as further evidence to lobby our government for concrete action.”

Practical solutions

For Hesti, who has been a Commissioner with Komnas Ham since 2007, finding practical solutions to pressing human rights issues has been a driving goal for many years.

She was one of the founders of ‘Savy Amira’, a women’s crisis centre which assists victims of violence and trafficking, and also headed up the Centre for Human Rights Studies at the University of Surabaya for four years.

“These are the issues that affect people’s daily lives – the right to food, the right to health, the right to education, the right to adequate housing,” says Hesti. “And these are the areas where we get many complaints from individuals and civil society.”

Promoting progress on economic, social and cultural rights will be a major focus for Komnas Ham during the coming year, she adds.

“To do this we need to work in cooperation with the central government and also with the local authorities. We need to help them understand their obligations to promote and protect these rights.

“Local governments are very familiar with the need to promote physical development in the region, but they often don’t understand their responsibility to promote human development.”

Date: 29 May 2010