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Indonesia – President-elect urged to strengthen migrant worker protection

28 August 2014

The Executive Director of Migrant Aid Indonesia, M. Kholili, has urged the country’s President-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Vice-President-elect Jusuf Kalla to create a policy to strengthen the protection of Indonesian migrant workers, reports The Jakarta Post.

Mr Kholili stated: “The Jokowi-Kalla government needs a policy that protects migrant workers, starting from the recruitment process, while they are in their work places, and until they return to Indonesia.”

He said migrant workers did not yet have adequate protection and many had become victims of human trafficking and abuse at the hands of their employers, often facilitated by rogue recruitment agencies.

“Policy reforms can be realised by providing access to information on job opportunities, document processing procedures, training and education programs, working hours and standards, salaries, and rights on absences of leave for migrant workers,” Mr Kholili explained.

He added that other policy reforms were needed, included eradicating rogue recruitment agencies, as well as illegal levies in various sectors, as recruitment agencies often exploited those wishing to work abroad.

Mr Kholili also urged Jokowi, as the President-elect is known, to reform the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers to ensure that it acts as a non-department government agency that protects migrant workers, and not as an “agent” that facilitates private employment agencies.