Muslim Women Travelling Without Male Kin...

The fact that Indonesian migrant workers, especially women, are abused overseas is a tragedy. However, the fact that some would use this to push an agenda that says Muslim women should not travel far from home without male relatives by their side almost reads like, "well, you travel alone and against the wishes of Allah, then you get what you deserve!"

To then say that you are more interested in protecting the rights of women and calling for a moratorium on the sending of female Indonesian migrant workers abroad rings hollow and is hypocritical. Women do not deserve to be protected just because they are women. Women deserve to be protected because they are human beings. Women need to be protected, like men, because they have a right to earn a living and provide for their families. Women have a right to travel to find those opportunities if those opportunities exist outside of the village that they live in or the country they call home.

The reality here is that the laws exist in the migrant working sphere that should already be sufficient in most cases to protect migrant workers while they are overseas. The problem is one of enforcement on the Indonesian side of the equation. The other reality that most people fail to understand is that in most cases the prevailing laws and regulations of the country where the migrant working is employed are the ones that will operate when crimes are committed. So, an Indonesian migrant worker abused in Saudi Arabia will find that the perpetrators of violence against her are subject to Saudi laws and regulations. This is the nature of sovereignty.

I am certain that Indonesians would not want other nations riding roughshod over their sovereignty and seeking to impose their laws and regulations on them. So, why is it that in this instance Indonesians want their government to impose Indonesian laws extra-territorially on offenses being committed in Saudi Arabia?

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is not certainty of "fixing" the problems of abuse. Once again, the laws and regulations already exist, both in Indonesia and in Saudi Arabia, this is a case of enforcement.

But, alas, I digress. Back to the topic at hand.

My personal view is that where basic human rights and religion clash at the coal-face, then it is the basic human rights that must prevail. The idea that women do not have the intelligence to make decisions for themselves about what is in their best interests bothers me. The vast majority of women and men that I known are more than capable of making decisions for themselves about what is in their respective best interests. So, to suggest that for Indonesian Muslim women the best decision makers are crotchety old men in white robes is something I find offensive.

According to The Jakarta Globe, twelve Muslim organisations have come together and have decided to lobby the government for a moratorium. No news there with respect to the moratorium. The idea that the only way to solve the abuse problem is to ban Indonesian women from going to places like Saudi Arabia is akin to burying one's head in the sand. And, it is self-defeating as Saudi Arabia will just get its domestic servants from other places. It also fails to recognise that a lot of the funding that these Muslim organisations receive actually wends it way to them through processes that include remittances made by Indonesian migrant workers.

The Nahdlatul Ulama position is "let's lobby for a memorandum of understanding" and ban all Indonesians from going to Saudi Arabia until we get one. Although, I am guessing this would exclude Indonesians doing a pilgrimage to a holy place.

The more interesting of The Jakarta Globe quotes comes from Muhammadiyah which said "... under Islam, Muslim women were not allowed to travel far from home without being accompanied by male kin ...". This was then supported by Said Aqil Siradj, Chairman of NU, who said that Islam expressly forbade women from going abroad to seek money unless it was absolutely necessary, “If they just want to gain more wealth overseas, that is not allowed.”

This begs the question, "when is working for money not about generating wealth?" But, probably, more important is who should provide for these Muslim women who are prohibited from earning wealth for wealth's sake when they cannot find employment within Indonesia to support themselves or their families. The government is not able to provide or guarantee this. It is also pretty certain that the twelve Muslim organisations in this pact are not able to provide the same levels of financial security that these migrant workers, particularly women, can find from going overseas. This is definitely a more pressing issue than an MOU, isn't it?

Thus endeth another rant and rail at The RAB Experience.

Moratorium on Indonesian Migrant Workers to Saudi Arabia...

The standard practice in Indonesia is that whenever there is an issue and it is likely that the political parties can score points off of each other or take a dig at the president, warranted or otherwise, then they will hold a meeting and call the relevant Minister to account.

In the most recent case of cheap political point scoring whilst highlighting a complete lack of appreciation for the complexity of the problem, the Minister for Labour (some might argue for manpower...but women worked the last time I checked, and labour is gender neutral) was called before Commission X of the House of Representatives (DPR).

Commission X is the commission that is responsible for labour affairs. So, it makes sense that they have a legitimate interest in the recent allegations of torture and murder of Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI) in Saudi Arabia. However, the meeting highlighted that the Commission had already adopted a position and was merely taking the Minister to task and threatening him in the even he did not roll over and play dead like a dog. Ribka Tjiptaning of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), and the Chair of the Commission, was really only interested in saying that everybody agrees there needs to be a moratorium on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia and if the government ignored the DPR then there would be repercussions.

The Minister for Labor and Transmigration, Muhaimin Iskandar, took that in his stride and argued that there would not be a moratorium. The reality is the government could not afford a moratorium like the ones that have been imposed previously on Kuwait, Jordan and Malaysia.

According to Tjiptaning, the best option is to hand out cash to those individuals who are interested in going overseas to work until such time as the government creates sufficient jobs to employ them in Indonesia. What Tjiptaning is calling for is the creation of a welfare state. This may in fact be possible if the government and the relevant taxation agencies could organise themselves in a manner that would allow the collection of all tax that is due. The cash handouts that Tjiptaning envisages have got to come from some cash reserve that the government has at hand. The government does not currently have sufficient cash on hand to be able to maintain a welfare state of the size that Tjiptaning is asking for.

In terms of job creation. There is always going to be unemployment, but the goal is to get unemployment down to a level as low as it can possibly be. The government is not creating the jobs to pick up the slack if all Indonesians are suddenly prohibited from going overseas in the pursuit of gainful employment. This is why a moratorium would not work.

The other reason a moratorium would not work is that migrant workers send a lot of money home. These remittances total in the billions of dollars. This is a foreign revenue stream that benefits many Indonesians directly as it is their family members that are remitting money to them at locations throughout the archipelago.

It is pretty obvious that Tjiptaning was only interested in taking a cheap swipe at the president by citing the Philippines as an example of good migrant worker management. This example was cited because the president of the Philippines came out and defended migrant workers in a very public show of support. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) for all his short-comings has uttered the right amount of dismay and disgust at the recent happenings. Although, his idea of mobile phones for all migrant workers was a little over-ambitious and silly.

A more important issue is law enforcement. Indonesia does have a relatively comprehensive set of migrant labour laws in place. The biggest failing of these laws is the lack of proper enforcement. For example, if the law requires that a migrant worker receive 200 hours of training before departure then that is what they must receive. The reality is that not all migrant workers get that amount of training as migrant worker placement agencies cut corners in an attempt to maximize profits for themselves. This is clearly a law enforcement issue. Perhaps if law enforcement better policed migrant labour agencies and imposed maximum punishments as available under the law, then some of these problems would lessen in terms of the severity of the consequences endured by migrant workers overseas.

In any event, some of those calling for the prosecution of foreign national perpetrators of violence by Indonesian courts or extending the reach of Indonesian law in order that it operates in the foreign territories of other states, need to take some advice on how sovereignty works. The torture and brutalisation of Sumiati, for example, is a crime committed in Saudi Arabia. it is therefore a crime that must be prosecuted by the relevant authorities in Saudi Arabia.

The answer is not a moratorium. The answer is better law enforcement at home. The answer is better equipped Indonesian Embassies in placement countries so that they have the personnel and the skills necessary to deal with any incidents as they arise.

Ho Hum...

Mr. President...

The abuse of Indonesia's migrant workers has been a problem from time immemorial. The reality is that Indonesia's migrant workers of the domestic servant kind are often thrown like lambs to the slaughter (for want of a better analogy) as they are under-skilled for the exploitation that they are about to be subject to. This has always had a high probability of ending badly for the migrant worker. Badly equates to, quite often, physical abuse at the hands of her employers, and sometimes worse.

The case of Sumiati has once again brought this very cold hard reality home.

Sadly, the President, SBY, has decided that a viable option is to equip all migrant workers with a mobile phone and a list of Embassy and Consulate numbers, presumably pre-loaded.

You really do not want to be searching for a business card while getting beaten to within an inch of your life. This is sad because the suggestion so obviously fails to see the reality that any domestic servant fronting up with a visible mobile phone of their own is likely to have it confiscated by the employer, particularly if the employer is the abusive and controlling kind.

Then again, the populist president knows his constituents are watching, so he has to say something.

I have always believed that there were large numbers of Indonesians heading to foreign locales as migrant workers. And, based on this the percentage that were subject violence was relatively small in number. I was not of the impression that there was a majority of migrant workers that were subject to violence. I will now do a little research and see if I can track down some statistics on the level of abuse.

So, it is within this understanding I wonder whether it is possible to eradicate all instances of violence? I am not suggesting that the Indonesian government throw up its hands and say that the numbers of victims considering the sheer numbers of migrant workers is acceptable.

To the contrary, perhaps a more comprehensive, and validated, pre-departure training program needs to be enforced to ensure that those Indonesians heading overseas to work, not only have the job skills necessary to complete their work contracts, but also have sufficient language skills and knowledge of what to do, where to go, and how to navigate the processes when things go wrong.

I have read stories of Indonesian families who lock their domestic servants inside the house when they go out. So, I do wonder how the Indonesian government plans to deal with a similar scenario if it was to occur in Saudi Arabia or Malaysia. I am not convinced that a mobile phone, in and of itself, is the answer.

Indonesian and Malaysian Relations

It seems that the Malaysian Ambassador to Indonesia has a few issues with the manner in which the Indonesian press cover Malaysia. Specifically, the issue is that the Indonesian press are, more often than not, portraying Malaysia in a negative light.

The focus of much of the Indonesian media when it comes to Malaysia relates to abuse. The abuse of Indonesian migrant workers, and more recently of the social-climbing starlet wanna be, Manohara Odelia Pinot.

The Ambassador's beef is that violence towards Indonesian migrant workers does not only happen in Malaysia. This is true. The Ambassador is right in pointing out that violence against Indonesia's migrant workers also occurs in Saudi Arabia and even in Indonesia before the prospective migrant workers get a chance to be abused overseas. This hardly seems like a viable excuse to cut Malaysia some slack.

The Ambassador, in essence, states that it is not Malaysian government policy to allow Indonesia's migrant workers to be abused on arrival in Malaysia or for the course of their working placement. This would seem to be a no-brainer, as if it was a government policy then the media coverage would undoubtedly be even more negative than it is now.

According to the Ambassador, anyone who is alleged to have abused someone, Indonesian migrant workers included, would be charged and prosecuted, and if convicted punished to the full extent permissible under Malaysian law.

The reason this is an issue is that Indonesia has ceased sending migrant workers to Malaysia until the issues relating to abuse are more fully resolved, particularly with respect to protections afforded to vulnerable migrant workers. A deal on this matter seems far from assured at the present point in time.

However, where it gets really interesting is that the Ambassador offers up the following example of why the coverage by the Indonesian media is negative: "Please don't portray us as bad people. Fifty percent of prisoners in Malaysia are Indonesians, why do we never hear about this in the news?"

Reading between the lines here; Indonesians that come to Malaysia are bad people because 50% of the total number of prisoners in Malaysian jails are Indonesians. So, we are clearly not as bad as Indonesians. Although, an alternative reading might be that Malaysians have a real problem with Indonesia and Indonesians, and whenever they get the chance will preferably put an Indonesian in jail.

I would have figured that good news is a two-way street. What is good for the goose has got to be good for the gander as well. Perhaps if Malaysian media reported a more balanced picture of Indonesia then perhaps Indonesian media would be equally forthcoming in portraying a more balanced picture of Malaysia.