Indonesia ready to send 600,000 workers to Saudi Arabia, but doubts remain about their rights
After ten years, Indonesia is to lift the ban on emigration to the Gulf, ostensibly because of better protections for migrants. But NGOs lament that economic interests are prioritised over workers’ protection. Despite a huge workforce, many young Indonesians remain unemployed and poorly educated.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Indonesia is ready to lift a ten-year ban on allowing Indonesians to seek work in Saudi Arabia, following a new memorandum of understanding between the two countries that ostensibly guarantees greater protections.
Migrant Workers Protection Minister Abdul Kadir Karding made the announcement, saying that the agreement will be signed in Jeddah in the coming weeks, after obtaining the green light from Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
“After ensuring that Saudi Arabia’s labour protection system has improved sufficiently, we will reopen the programme,” Karding said at a press conference.
Indonesia plans to send up to 600,000 workers starting as early as June, including 400,000 domestic workers and 200,000 skilled workers, although it is not clear in which sectors they will be employed.
According to government estimates, the deal could generate around 31 trillion rupees (US$ 1.89 billion) a year in foreign exchange.
Karding noted that workers will be entitled to health, social security and life insurance coverage, as well as a monthly minimum wage of about 1,500 Saudi riyals (almost US$ 400 or about 6.5 million rupiah), higher than the minimum wage in Indonesia.
The previous ban came into effect in 2015 following a string of abuse cases involving Indonesian workers in the Gulf countries, including physical and sexual abuse and withholding of pay, a byproduct of the so-called kafala system, whereby workers are tied to their employers, severely limiting their rights or recourse to legal action.
Indonesia first banned emigrating to Mideast countries in 2011, lifted in 2014, and then reinstated after only one year, when Indonesian authorities stopped female workers from travelling to countries with the kafala system, like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Egypt.
Today, most Indonesian women are employed in other Asian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Nevertheless, the Indonesian Migrant Workers Agency received 186 complaints in the past year from Indonesians in Saudi Arabia, making the kingdom one of the countries with the highest number of reports.
In fact, despite the moratorium, in fact, about 250,000 Indonesian workers arrive in Saudi Arabia every year through irregular channels.
Workers' rights organisations have expressed strong reservations about the memorandum of understanding.
Nuharsono, coordinator of Migrant Care, spoke to the South China Morning Post about “rampant cases of abuse involving Indonesian migrant workers, the majority of whom are women.”
In his view, Saudi Arabia’s legal system does not adequately protect migrant workers, and lifting the ban reflects more Indonesia's economic interests than any concern for migrants’ welfare.
Despite its huge workforce, the fourth largest in the world, Indonesia has high youth unemployment, mainly due to low skills. Productivity is very low, even lower than that of Thailand and Malaysia and equal to that of Venezuela.
These macroeconomic data threaten the ambitions of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who revised upwards his economic growth forecasts at the beginning of the year. Yet, the former general recently proposed cuts to education, sparking a backlash among Indonesians.
According to some experts, Indonesia, which has so far invested heavily in infrastructure and new technologies, has neglected investment in human capital.
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11/08/2017 20:05
30/03/2022 13:58
