The new Manpower Minister Muhammad Hanif Dhakiri has said he will thoroughly evaluate the certification process of aspiring migrant workers as a crucial step in reducing risks as much as possible for the millions of Indonesians working overseas.

The plan is welcome as risks loom at every step for those seeking work abroad, especially in sectors considered to require “low skills.”

Every now and then, reports emerge of workers being misled or abused at the stage of recruitment, training, deployment, employment or upon their return home ― while the economic contribution of some 6.5 million workers is significant, estimated at almost $7.3 billion last year, not including money taken home directly to families.

Indonesia’s progress, among other things, must be measured by how far it moves away from a legacy of trafficking and slavery, toward state facilitation of citizens aspiring to work anywhere out of their own free will, based on easy access to information, to improve their experience and their families’ welfare. At this point the picture is highly mixed.

Those with higher education are still a minority with better access to information compared to most people from rural areas who are easily lured from their villages without being able to thoroughly check the background and track record of those who recruit them.

The most vulnerable group is young women recruited from poor areas across western to eastern Indonesia, by brokers well connected with agencies and local authorities. They are not all working for accountable labor-placement agencies; a number of agencies have been found to have false certifications, while even those with the right papers have questionable recruitment and training standards, resulting at best in the deportation of workers. Aspiring migrants have been found to have false health-examination results.

Early last month, Hanif revoked the permit of a labor agency in Jakarta, finding in an impromptu inspection that over 40 migrant candidates were crammed into one room with only one bathroom for them to use. The scene is far from new and unfortunately remains unresolved.

Hanif, whose mother used to be a migrant worker, has lamented his finding that only seven certification bodies were tasked to evaluate some 300,000 aspiring migrants each year.

As he aims to tackle the problem from its roots, the minister will also need to focus on changing the Migrant Worker Law, which critics say is weak on protection ― once the legislature settles its political impasse.

In every administration we have idealists who say we will soon stop the deployment of unskilled workers, particularly maids. Despite good intentions also shared by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to protect citizens from rampant abuse, this will not work. The desperate will stop at nothing to feed their families; thus human trafficking will continue.

Rooting out and resolving every loophole in the recruitment and deployment of workers abroad, to ensure their rights during their term of employment until their return home, is the expectation of Jokowi’s new government, in line with his campaign to protect our migrant workers.

(Editorial, The Jakarta Post)

(Asia News Network)